Ideal student Essay Example for Free

Ideal student Essay Students are the future hope of the country. A student is like clay which can be molded into any shape. Hence, it is very necessary that the student should be brought up and taught in the right ways. Teachers and parents are responsible for shaping the character of students. Discipline is the foremost quality of a student. He has to live with good behavior and in a discipline way. This is the time of life when the foundation of character is laid. A student without a sense of discipline is like a ship without a rudder. He should be obedient, cautious, humble and simple. He should respect his elders and gain knowledge so that he may become a good citizen. A good student should be studious. He should not only study but also let others study from him. For this he will have to be law-abiding. An ideal student should keep himself healthy by taking part in games and extra curricular activities. He should be an all rounder. He should select his friend intelligently and wisely. He should have no evil in him and let no evil tempt him. An ideal student should be any time helping and an amusing friend. He should keep the atmosphere lively by his humorous nature. He should never be passive in mind and body. He should take an active part in the activities of the school. He should be a source of inspiration for others. The school is a community and an ideal student should have good relations with his authorities and friends. He should be frank and fearless. An ideal student will admit his mistake, get it corrected and learn from it. He is fully conscious of his duties and responsibilities. He sets an example for the younger generation. An ideal student has many good qualities. He presents an ideal model of character before others such a student will be an asset to others.

The Green Revolution A Glorious Success History Essay

The Green Revolution A Glorious Success History Essay The term Green Revolution was first coined by the USAID United States Agency for International Development in 1968. It all started in Mexico with US aid and backed by the support of giants like Ford and Rockfeller Corporation way back in the 1940s. It was the initiative of a man named Norman Borlough who developed a strain of rice and wheat which yielded an output (under optimal conditions) so far only dreamt off. These strains of cereals were termed as HYV (High Yielding Variety). Norman Borlough is considered to be the father of the Green Revolution. He played a very instrumental role along with M.S. Swaminathan who was our minister for Agriculture in bringing Green Revolution to India. The G R was considered as the solution to feed the worlds growing population, it very well may have been. [J R McNeill] In India alone the astounding agricultural growth in Punjab is exemplified by the increase in Punjabi wheat production from 1.9 to 5.6 million tons during the years 1965 through 1972.  [1]  The production of rice also increased greatly. India soon adopted IR8 a semi-dwarf rice variety developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) that could produce more grains of rice per plant when grown with certain fertilizers and irrigation. In 1968, Indian agronomist S.K. De Datta published his findings that IR8 rice yielded about 5 tons per hectare with no fertilizer, and almost 10 tons per hectare under optimal conditions. This was 10 times the yield of traditional rice. IR8 was a success throughout Asia, and dubbed the Miracle Rice. IR8 was also developed into Semi-dwarf IR36.  [2]  India was on the brink of a famine in 1961, but with the introductio n of G R we became an exporter of food grains within a very short period of time. G R was a gift of the developed nations to the third world countries. It was a package deal promoted by the World Bank to help them get out of their debt traps. The G R was accepted with open arms with little or no thought about its viability or sustainability. It was looked on as a one stop shop to their economic and demographic problems. The green revolution- the US-sponsored technological package for agricultural development-was accepted in India some-what over-enthusiastically and also un- critically. It was hoped that with improved farm production, not only a lasting solution would be found for the perpetual problems of rural poverty and hunger but also it would generate a new resource base-a launching pad for rural industrialisation that would create new employment opportunities and would improve the quality of life at the grassroots in an appreciable measure. [Dhanagare 1987] Rather than Why was the Green Revolution such a great success? I would like to argue from the point of view of Was the Green Revolution such a great success? I would like to consider the viewpoints of some scholars which may be quite contrary to what the advocators and promoters of Green Revolution would like to believe. The G R as already mentioned earlier was a package deal it came along with certain factors like irrigation, chemical fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides and mechanization and large size holdings without which the success of G R would not be dramatic. These are factors that India did not and could not afford at all levels. Apart from this G R was not all positive it looked like it came in with more negative as time passed on. Through different case studies I would like to present my argument. Endosulfan Poisoning in Kasargoad, Kerala, India This is the story of a small village in the state of Kerala a village named Swarga literally meaning heaven. A village untouched by industrialization and people depended on plantation farming. A typical Indian village until suddenly people found things going wrong, Calves dying honeybees disappearing, wildlife being affected and then slowly the people being affected by a strange illness. The cause, unknown. The Kerala state government decided to spray its cashew plantations with ariel pesticide. It was a sight to see a helicopter hovering over the village and it attracted a lot of attention. Little did the people know what the aftermath of this would be. Even when a sudden and strange kind of illness hit little did they associate it with the helicopter, they believed that it was some kind of a curse. Until one farmer noticed a strange coincidence in the death of his three calves and raised up an issue. This interested a journalist who began to probe into this situation. A local doctor who began to see a strange pattern of new diseases in his patients added value to the work of the journalist. It was not an easy path to travel and prove their stand as they had to fight capitalist giants whos stakes were high in the manufacture of the deadly chemical. The help of an international organization was sought. A fact finding team of PAN(Pesticide Action Network) AP headed by Dr Romeo F Quijango was formed. The objective of the mission was: To find out the veracity of the reports that there have incidents of illness since the cashew nut plantations started their operations The extent to which these aerial sprayings have affected the people and the environment After detailed inspection of the surroundings, physical examination of the affected people and a wide range of interviews with both the local people and authorities the reports of poisoning were confirmed. The findings stated The cause for the illness was intrinsic toxicology properties of endosulfan There seems to exist no other probable causes other than endosulfan for the occurrence of illness There is a clear time and geographical association between the occurrence of illness and the aerial spraying There is a corroborated effect on both the environment and the animals which are related to endosulfan poisoning. Medical reports of the victims as recorded by the local physicians confirmed the poisoning Biological and environmental samples analyzed at laboratories confirmed the presence of endosulfan. The findings confirmed the poisoning and a permanent ban on the spray of endosulfan was placed. The extent of damage cannot be undone. Most of the cases of poisoning described in the report are of young children born with cerebral palsy due to the poisoning. Though this report was confined to Kasargod there are wide spread use and effects felt in the neighboring states as well. Here I would like to include an article from the newspaper that report cases of endosulfan poisoning from Karnataka Gowda was born in 1977. To his chagrin through RTI he found that 92 villages were sprayed with endosulfan in the four taluks of the district. He visited 82 villages and found that horrifying cases of disabilities, especially cerebral palsy affecting adults and children. I have decided not to get married -firstly to carry this fights forward and secondly to see that my children dont live like me. I may get married if I can afford to do a gene test which proves everything is alright with me, he adds. Gowda says: In some places the situation is too horrible to describe. A mother who is an anganwadi teacher has two children one of them is affected with this type of poisoning. She gives him food at 9 am locks the door and goes for work. When she returns, the boy will be rolling in his own fecal matter. This is an everyday story. The government officials, if they visit each and every home, they will understand the gravity of the problem. But they dont, hence dont understand our situation  [3]  This has been the effect of the indiscriminate use of pesticides and insecticides on the unaware and innocent lives. Rachel Carson dedicated her entire book The Silent Spring to bring awareness to the effects of insecticides and pesticides on man and his environment. Though she did succeed to large extent on banning their indiscriminate use still continues in the third world countries. This according to Clevo Wilson Clem Tisdell are due to varied economic reasons and also due to lack of knowledge. Farmers continue to use pesticides if their net discounted rate of return is greater in the present. This happens much more in less developed countries than in more developed countries. To make themselves economically viable farmers are forced to use pesticides because it causes an increase in the production in the short run, though the cost will increase in the long run which they are unaware of, and also once a new technique is used the cost of reverting back maybe very high. Further it may be due to a lack of knowledge on the part of farmers. It may also be that use of pesticides and fertilizers are considered to be an integral part of commercialized agriculture. To add to this would be the pressure the farmers may face from advertisements and sales schemes of companies manufacturing insecticides and fertilisers. It has also been found that though farmers may be aware of Integrated Pest Management systems they may not be easily accessible, as seen in the case of farmers in Sri Lanka.  [4]   Our next case study is based in Punjab that highlights the negative effect that G R has had on the employment of the youth. Punjab agriculture has been known for the green revolution of the late 1960s and the 1970s. Not only has it achieved an irrigation coverage of 95 per cent of the net sown area, cropping intensity of 185, and 98 per cent HYV coverage which are all the highest among the Indian states, but even the yields of major crops wheat and paddy are of a very high order, i e, 3,941 kgs and 3,393 kgs per hectare respectively [CACP 1997] The agricultural sector in Punjab is very capital intensive with the highest number of tubewells and tractors in the country and the highest consumer of electricity, 21% of wheat, 9% of rice and 21% of cotton produced in India came from Punjab. In the 1980s the scene began to change, the same level of production could not be maintained. The net costs began to increase mainly due to over mechanization and small holdings were no longer profitable to cultivate. This became apparent in the rise in tenancy of small farms and another evidence of this was an increase in the market for second hand tractors. The proportion of marginal holdings in total decreased from 37 per cent to 26 per cent during 1970-71 to 1990-91 and those above 10 hectares increased significantly [GoP 1997] The unemployment rates increased The proportion of agricultural labour in total rural male workers went up by 2.2 per cent during the 1980s and that of cultivators went down by 2.7 per cent. The unemployment rate among rural males (2.9 per cent) in the late 1980s was marginally above that at the national level (2.8 per cent) and that among rural females more than double (7.4 per cent) that of the national level (3.5 per cent) [Chand 1999a]. To add to this were the problems of monoculture and lack of diversification, increased attack of pests due to increased resistance to insecticides decreasing water levels. Thus based on the Jhol committee agriculture was diversified to include horticultural crops leading to the opening of food processing industries.This did not seem to make much of a difference as the three industries could work only with a small number of farmers and this did not make much of a difference to the rest. The high mechanisation of agricultural operations had added to the problem of rural un- employment. Now, combine harvesters could do the entire harvesting of paddy and a large proportion of wheat crop, which had cut down the number of days a farm worker could be gainfully employed in the farm sector. The labour requirements were also increasingly met from migrant labour. On the other hand, educated rural youth did not find farming profitable enough as an occupation. Unemployment of youth in Punjab was not due to lack of work opportunities in the farm sector per se, but due to the strong preference of these youth for non-farm jobs. But the industrial sector of the state which was dominated by small-scale industry did not offer many skilled jobs and depended on migrant labour for manual work as these workers were available for lower wages, did not create trouble as they had less political clout and bargaining power. On the other hand, urban people were preferred for skilled jobs as they are more tuned to industrial or corporate work culture [Chand 1999b]. The problem of rural unemployment was compounded by the fact that rural youth did not possess any specia l skills and did not have an aptitude to work in conventional industries owned by local capital. The only industries they were more familiar with were agro-processing ones which had recently roped in some rural youth but the jobs were few as the operations were highly mechanised and few manual jobs remained.  [5]   The very purpose of G R was to improve agriculture and reduce the income disparities but that very purpose was defeated. Through our next paper Green revolution and increase in social inequalities in India D.N. Dhanagre  [6]  we are going to see how social inequalities have increased. The effects of G R were assessed within five years of its initiation into India through a symposium organised by the Centre for the Study of Social Change in 1973. Where both, the positive side and the negative side were highlighted. On the positive side the increase in crop production was stressed on. This increase was 87.2 per cent in Punjab, and 64.90 per cent in Haryana where the gains in production performance were impressive'[Vyas, 1974: 67-70], and hence there was no alternative to G R to develop the backward regions of our country. The green revolution was distributed differentially to different categories of farmers putting the small and marginal farmers at a relative disadvantage. The reasons for differential distribution were obvious. The high cost/high yield cereal technology of the green revolution called for substantial capital investments generally beyond the means of a majority of small and marginal farmers.'[CSSC 1984]. To add to this the Indian Government was criticized by the Halselemere Group of favouring the rich and large land owning farmers in distribution of cheap credit and subsidies rather than the poorer ones. Size and nature of land holdings- Initially it was believed that the size of the holding did not matter in G R practices, but when it came to the reality of implementation it was found not to be true. The agricultural development bureaucracy working at the grass root level that scale neutrality was not true, the larger holdings were at an advantage. According to Danagare even the introduction of HYV seeds there was a pro rich bias seen. The requirement of each farmer to buy two shares of seed worth Rs 100/- each per acre was again to the advantage of the larger land holding farmers. Since the G R package was created with the perennially irrigated land in mind the government favoured them rather than farming in semi-arid and dry areas again leading to disparity in the distribution of income regionally. Further it has been found that while poor farmers own only 21% of land in wet regions almost 50% of the land was owned by poor farmers in the dry regions,[Atherya et,al 1983]. The polarisation process that accentuates the rural class differences has been further intensified by the green revolution. In a survey done by Bhalla and Chada in Punjab its been found that farmers with land holdings less than 2.5acres earned Rs1231/- while those with land holdings 25acres or more earned Rs24,283/- annually. In other words a rich farmer without putting in any physical effort was earning much more than a poor farmer, where he and his entire family would have had to work. Use of mechanization- as very apparent mechanization of farming was to the advantage of the rich and large land holding farmers. It not only increased disparity among the farmers but also hit hard on the labourers. Billings and Singh have discovered that in Punjab the demand for agricultural labour went up from 51 mandays to 60.1 mandays with the introduction of the persian wheel as a means of irrigation and of fertilisers and pesticides. However, when pump-sets, wheat-threshers, corn-shellers and tractors are introduced the average demand for labour drops down to 25.6 mandays (1969: A 221-24) It was found through surveys both in Punjab and in Chengilpet TN that the poorer farmers did not hesitate to invest and compete with the rich farmers though it was an uphill task for them but they did not benefit. In fact, all available statistics indicate greater and greater immiseration and pauperisation as the green revolution technology package has spread in diffierent parts of India. [Dhanagare 1978] I would like to conclude by mentioning Vandana Shivas view as expressed in her book The violence of the Green Revolution Third world agriculture, ecology and politics in the western view our system of agriculture was primitive and they wanted to thrust upon us their modern scientific view, as a socio political solution to our problems which only created more problems. In the traditional agricultural systems Shiva believes that people used their knowledge and experience to create a balance between the resources and their uses. Cropping systems include a symbiotic relationship between soil, water, farm animals and plants. They were preserving and building on natures process and natures patterns. This system was based on sustainability and made the farmers self- reliant as advocated by Gandhiji. As Rachel Carson puts it In nature nothing exists alone'[ Silent Spring] and if we dont recognize this and awake to the fact that we are a part of the nature we are destroying we may be too late.

Nature Vs Nurture Philosophy

Nature Vs Nurture Philosophy There is an issue that has been debated upon by philosophers in the past and still so by scientists today. This issue is whether heredity or environment plays a greater role in the determining or shaping of an individuals behavior. It is known as the nature versus nurture debate. Numerous generations before us have deliberated on the reasons behind the development of human behavior. There have been many theories formulated to explain why humans behave the way they do. The surviving theories for behavior derive from physiological and sociological explanations, however, the two explanations have not always been compatible with each other. The famous nature vs. nurture debate over human behavior resulted from conflicting views between proponents of the physiological (nature) and sociological (nurture) explanations. Throughout history, research has swayed popularity back and forth between the theories. Yet, theorists have broken down the line separating nature and nurture.* As of today, people utilize both explanations to explore human behavior. Considerably before our time, early philosophers endeavored to understand the human behavior. As early as 350 BC, such philosophers as Plato and Aristotle tried to understand behavior. *The question of nature or nurture as the primary drive can be traced to these times. Plato believed behavior and knowledge was due to innate factors. Author Fiona Cowie states, The claim that the character of our mental furniture is to a large extent internally rather than environmentally determined found its first substantive defense in the works of Plato (Cowie, ). Plato theorized that all knowledge is present at birth. Plato also believed that the environment played a part in human processes, but he thought it had a unique role. He believed the environment did not teach people anything new, but its purpose was to remind people of information they already knew (Cowie, 1999). Although Platos views are not supported today, he laid the groundwork for other researchers to follow. Alternatively, philosopher Aristotle theorized a different idea about human behavior. He presented the idea that humans are born into the world with a blank slate and peoples behavior and thoughts are due to experience (Ashcraft, 1998). Unlike Plato, Aristotle hypothesized that humans were not born with knowledge, but they acquire it through experience (Ashcraft, 1998). Aristotles idea of the tabula rasa is not believed today. Nevertheless, his belief that the environment was a vital factor in behavior influenced many empiricists throughout history. During the late 1700s, the nature vs. nurture debate began to heat up between philosophers. Internalists (nature) and empiricists (nurture) wrote literature back and forth trying to prove their beliefs and disprove the other theories. Two philosophers, G.W. Leibniz and John Locke, were the main representatives of their respected explanations. Leibniz promoted the externalism point of view. Cowie states, Leibnizs position on this issue is, of course, that the tabula is far from rasa: The soul inherently contains the sources of various notions and doctrines, which external objects merely rouse up (Cowie, 1999). Leibniz argued against Locke and other empiricists stated that there is no way ideas which come into the mind from outside can be formed into beliefs and judgments without the operation of specific internal mechanisms (Cowie, 1999). Simultaneously, John Locke and his fellow philosophers campaigned for empiricism. Like Aristotle, the philosophers believed that humans thoughts and actions were determined not by innate factors, but by their unique experiences (Ashcraft, 1998). Locke argued against the internalists by tentatively examining different human processes such as logic and reasoning. He would ask how it was possible to use logic and reasoning if people were born with all of the knowledge they would ever acquire (Cowie 1999). The contrasting views of the two groups had begun the nature vs. nurture debate, which would linger in the fields of philosophy and psychology for decades. A key point should be made that even though the literalists and empiricists felt strongly about their theories, the explanations were not entirely opposite of each other. Cowie explains, rhetoric aside, both empiricists and nativists are both internalist and externalists about the origin of what is in our minds (Cowie, 1999). Even Leibniz and Locke stated that the philosophies sometimes were only different by the choices of words they used to describe their theories. Leibniz once wrote that fundamentally their views were the same about the nature vs. nurture question (Cowie, 1999). The most recent studies that have been done on twins and adoption use both identical and fraternal twins. This consists in the studying of twins that were separated at birth and grew up in separate homes. Identical twins are 100% genetically similar and offer exact genetic replicas to study, where fraternal twins are the same as any other siblings at 50% similar (Vanderbilt). Some of the final results of these studies show astonishing similarities between identical twins, yet others show little evidence of these similarities. With fraternal twins there is some similarities but none that are complete evidence of the nature theory. These studies fuel the pot for both the nature and the nurture ideas. The nature vs. nurture debate over the last forty years has reached an agreement that they both influence the development of human behavior. In the 1960s, researchers from both theories began to study the interaction of the genes and the environment (Devlin, 1997). Dr. Ann Barnet explains, Even in an unborn baby, genes and environment interact almost from the moment of conception(Barnet, 1998). The statements of Dr. Fausto-Sterling and Dr. Evan Balaban can sum up the interaction between nature and nurture. Fausto-Sterling states, People want simple explanations for hard-core problems. If there was an anti-testosterone drug that we could to inject to make young boys niceit would be easier and cheaper than transforming schoolsor whatever is at the heart of the problem (Barnet, 1998). However, Balaban replies, dont hold your breath if you think looking for genes to help you understand violence. I would put my money on some clever environmental manipulations, because in the end youre goi ng there anyway (Barnet, 1998). The nature vs. nurture debate has produced many research advances in the area of human development. Even though evidence proves that there is an interaction between genes and the environment, people will continue to study the effects of each in development. In these future studies, I hope more groundbreaking advances will be made to aid humans in better understanding human behavior. In the end, that is what both sides of the nature vs. nurture debate intended to accomplish. Works Cited Ashcraft, M. (1998). Fundamentals of Cognition. New York, NY: Longman. Brooks, J. (2004). The process of parenting. (6th ed). Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill. Cowie, F. (1999). Whats Within?. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Devlin, B. (1997). Intelligence, Genes, and Success. New York, NY: Copernicus. Deutschmann, Linda B. (2002). Deviance and Social Control Third Edition. Scarborough, ON: Nelson Thomson Learning. Fujita, Frank. (2000). Nature vs. Nurture. 3/15/2002 from: http://folk.uio.no/roffe/faq/node11.html Hockenbury&Hockenburry. (2003). Discovering Psychology Third Edition. New York, NY: Worth Publishers

Why did the Weimar Republic fail? :: World War II History

Why did the Weimar republic fail? After World War One ended and Germany was defeated, they returned to their country with heavy losses, a 6.6 billion pound reparation cost and a feeling of being let down. The country suffered huge economical losses and the country fell into poverty and starvation. Any government ruling a country like this already would have a very hard time keeping alive. At this point the Emergency Weimar Republic constitution was adopted by three parties, the Social Democratic Party, the Catholic Center and the German Democratic Party, in early 1919 they won 76 percent of the vote and began to govern Germany. The Weimar Republic was modelled around the imperial constitution and was written in Weimar. People had to blame someone and they blamed the republic for everything, for loosing the war, to the situation they were in now. One of the main reasons the Weimar republic fell from power was the treaty of Versailles, the German people thought all the bad things that had happened to them and their cou ntry were a result of it. In addition to this there were parties from the left and right challenging them. A bi product of the treaty of Versailles was the huge economic lose in their country; this gave the German people more reason to blame and loathe the Weimar republic. The third and final main reason was Hitler's raise to power, he offered the countries people freedom from the Weimar rule and they gradually accepted it. After world war one ended and the treaty of Versailles was signed, German troops returned home feeling angry. They felt that there was no need to call an end to the war, as it didn't seem as though they had the lower hand and Germany had not been invaded. They were bitter because they couldn't fight on and knew it had all been for nothing and they hadn't gained anything. In fact they lost a lot; during the peace conference they were forced to, most importantly; redefine their Western borders and give over a lot of land (13%), pay for damages amounting to $33 billion us dollars, hugely diminish their army and navy and destroy their air-force, donate some of their coal mines (26%) to France as compensation for destroying theirs and accept full responsibility for the war. The German people found the treaty hugely unfair and unjust.

Personal Narrative- My Dream Essay examples -- Personal Narrative Writ

Personal Narrative- My Dream I picture myself center stage in the most enormous and fantastically beautiful theater in the world. Its walls and ceilings are covered in impeccable Victorian paintings of angels in the sky. A single ray of light shines down upon my face, shining through the still, silent darkness, and all attention is on me and me alone. The theater is a packed house; however, my audience is not that of human beings, but rather the angels from the paintings on the walls come alive, sitting intently in the rows of plush seats. Their warmth encompasses my body, and I know at that moment that it is time to begin. I open my mouth. From deep inside my soul a melody flows out of my chest, off of my tongue, and finally caresses my lips with the sweetest touch, and my song fills the air with a boldness like that of the glory of the angels. The sound of my song is that of unfathomable wonder, a voice as sweet and smooth as the face of a child. I sing and sing and sing my heart out, and I wonder and wonder and wonder in awe of the sound that is coming from my mouth and my...

College Acceptance Essay

Education is one of the most important activities that we have to go through in our life. It is the reason why the world is where it is today. All of these progresses and inventions would have never been achieved if it was not for educated people. It helped the society to make smarter and better choices. Almost all of the inventions that make our life easier today are the outcome of education. Scientists, politicians, teachers, etc. are all first educated before they go out to the real world to practice what they have learned. Universities and colleges are the places where people go seeking for higher education. Students will do whatever they can to make sure they end up in one of these places. Unfortunately, not everybody is accepted. Every institution has its own requirements for students have to match in order to be accepted. Not long ago, minorities used to face a very challenging situation if they wanted to get into a higher education institute. These things don’t seem to be that big of a problem right now. Students get accepted to different kinds of schools depending on how good they perform during their high school year and on their SAT test scores. The controversial issue now is whether students’ academic background should be the only factor considered in admission. Even though universities and colleges are home for knowledge and students should be accepted according to their ability to learn, other factors should also be considered to give students a second chance at a higher education institute. Academic eligibility is a major obstacle one has to meet in order to be able to attend a higher education institution. Some people have outstanding performance that allow them to attend the college of their dreams. Others, however, may not be as smart and may lack the eligibility required to attend a college. Universities are places where students face challenging lessons and are excepted to try to the best of their ability to succeed. Those who have a better background in studying habits are more likely to succeed in school. The education we get at an early age will affect us on our journey to success. That is why universities should consider academic performance in their admission requirements. Students with satisfying SAT score and a good GPA should not be worried about getting accepted or not; They deserve it. As long as school is a place for education, those who prove they have been committed to their lessons should be the only ones given the chance to progress in their education. One of the other reasons why academic achievement should be the only factor considered for college admission is for fair treatment and morality. If a person has done a good job through out his/her educational process in high school, he/she deserves to be accepted to their dream college. It would not be fair if he/she is turned down by his/her dream college while a careless classmate gets his acceptance letter. It would not be fair. The student’s moral will be crushed. Not being able to make his/her dream come true after dedicating all their time on their education, will, without a doubt, leave a student hopeless. Therefore, the admission board needs to respect the concept of education and those hard working students and consider only academic eligibility. Admissions should only concentrate on how the student can reply to his/her educational challenges not on how they can run across the field. Athletes can not perform as well as those accepted for their academic eligibility, â€Å"they also regularly finish their college carries in the bottom of their class† (editorial 371). Another reason for the necessity of the sole consideration of academic eligibility for college admission is the future. People in universities are the leaders of tomorrow. They need to have a diverse view of the world supported by their education. They should understand any issue that may come from any part of the world so that they can help solve it. These leaders of tomorrow also need to have a good background in education starting from preschool. They need to understand the importance of education for life. In order to appreciate education, they need to know the rewards that come from it. The future leaders, are those who take school seriously. Those who take it seriously are more likely to get satisfying grades that allow them to enter a higher education institute. If we care about our future, we should consider it in all our decisions. The college admission office should consider only academic eligibility because those who think of the future are those who get the satisfying grades and those should be rewarded the acceptance letter. On the other hand, the benefit that colleges get from the athletic students is beyond anyone‘s imagination. Especially small universities need these athletes to compete with other schools and keep their reputation. These small, highly selective liberal universities such as Harvard have a wide selection of sports, but they also need a strong team. The problem these schools are facing is the size of the student body. The schools can not make strong teams if there is not much to choose from. Athletes make up 32% of the male student body at schools like Harvard and Williams, as opposed to only 5% at a school like the University of Michigan. (Editorial 370). If we taking look at the professional sport field, like the NBA, NFL, MLS, and others, we can see that many star players rose from universities and colleges. These pro athletes became stars by playing sports in their universities. These colleges are the reason why we now enjoy our favorite sport every week. Students come from all over the world with great potentials. Students who enter the United States after finishing high school or on the erg of finishing high school, will have a difficult time getting into highly selective universities. America is the home for many immigrant scientists and engineers, and these high school or college students from other countries could be the next scientists or engineers. Other countries have a very difficult grading system than the U. S. A. When the grade conversions are made in the U. S, what was the highest score in the class back home will now be nothing more than the average. This average grade wont take immigrant students to one of these best universities or colleges. Their background is the only chance they have to get accepted. Most colleges embrace diversity and try to accept people of all races. The more universities and colleges accept these type of students, the more diverse the schools can be. They can bring a cultural diversity among students which can be used in the future to solve problems outside of the U.S. therefore, these foreigners depend on another factor other than academic eligibility to be accepted into a college. For most of our population, education is the only way out of poverty or any other problem. people put their faith on it and hope to get the best it can offer. They will do anything to go anywhere it leads them. Before they taste the fruits of education, they have to pass through tests and other obstacles. Getting to college is one of those obstacles. To get accepted into one of the finest schools is a major issue. Students wish to enroll into a school they desire and progress in their education to help themselves, their family, and their country. In order to do this, they need to keep a satisfying score while they are in school. As students, teens have more to offer than their brain. Not one but many of them can make the institute they represent best at what these students do besides learning, benefiting themselves and their schools. Therefore, it is important for universities and colleges to take a good look at the students’ ability to learn, without forgetting but respecting what they can do when they are not in a class room.

Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement

The Postwar 1920s was decade of the â€Å"New Negro† and the Jazz Age â€Å"Harlem Renaissance,† or first Black Renaissance of literary, visual and performing arts. In the 1960s and 70s Vietnam War and Civil Right era, a new breed of black artists and intellectuals led what they called the Black Arts Movement. The Black Arts Movement came into being even as the rift between the black and white society in America widened in the 1960's, in the wake of Civil Rights movement, shaking the country's political and social stability. In fact, the history of African American poetry in the twentieth century can be divided not into two but three generations: the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and early 1930s, the post-Renaissance poetry of the 1940s and 1950s, and the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The Harlem Renaissance was the first major flowering of creative activity by African American writers, artists, and musicians in the twentieth century. In the 1940s and 1950s, there was   a revival of African American verse, led by Melvin Tolson, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Robert Heyden. Finally, a third wave of African American poetry emerged in the late 1960s with the Black Arts movement or Black Aesthetic. It was motivated by the newly emerging racial and political consciousness (Neal 236). Poets such as Amiri Baraka, June Jordan, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Audre Lorde, Ishmael Reed , and Michael S. Harper produced poetry that was rawer in its language form and also often carried sharp, militant messages. While the Harlem Renaissance was the literary avant-garde movement, the Black Arts Movement was the poetic avant-garde of the 1960's. The Black Arts movement — also known as the New Black Consciousness, and the New Black Renaissance — began in the mid-1960s and lasted until the mid-1970s, though it lingered on for a while thereafter, even spreading into the 80s. The poetry, prose fiction, drama, and criticism written by African Americans during this period expressed a boldly militant attitude toward white American culture and its racist practices and ideologies. Slogans such as â€Å"Black Power,† â€Å"Black Pride† and â€Å"Black is Beautiful† represented a sense of political, social, and cultural freedom for African Americans, who had gained not only a heightened sense of their own oppression but also a greater feeling of solidarity with other parts of the black world: African and the Caribbean. The young artists of the Black Artists Movement were fighting for a cultural revolution (Woodard â€Å"Amiri Baraka† 60). The new spirit of militancy and cultural separatism that characterized the racial politics of the late 1960s had profound effects on the way African American poetry was written. There was pressure on African American poets, more than ever before, to produce work that was explicitly political in nature and that addressed issues of race and racial oppression. The Black Arts movement was strongly associated with the Black Power movement and its brand of radical and revolutionary politics. The emergence of Black Power as a mass slogan signaled a fundamental turning point in the modern Afro-American liberation struggle, carrying it to the threshold of a new phase. – Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik (Quoted in Woodard â€Å"A Nation Within† 69) The Black Arts and the Black Power movement was further galvanized into action by the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King , Jr. and by the angry riots and the burning of inner cities that ensued. (Wynter 109). The writers and artists of the Black Arts Movement had gone much further than Harlem Renaissance in asserting the larger political and spiritual identity of the Black people. Above all, Blacks tended to refuse to be judged by the dominant white standards of beauty, value and intelligence anymore (Leon 28). In the poems and critical statements of Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal and others, there was a new level of racial consciousness, and clearer process of self-definition. Their voice did not limit itself to   negative protest, but positively sought to provide a new vision of freedom. The young black poets of the Movement turned away from the formal or modernist styles of earlier black poets and promoted a poetic form that reflected the rawness of the streets. Most prominent among these poets were Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovaani, Don L. Lee (Haki Madhubuti), Etheridge Knight, David Henderson, June Jordan, Ishmael Reed, Michael S. Harper, Clarence Major, Sonia Sanchez, Kayne Cortex, and Lucille Clifton. The dominant theme in African American poetry, has always been that of liberation, whether from slavery, from segregation, or even from a wish for integration into the mainstream white middle-class society. Another important theme in African American poetry has been the concern with a spiritual or mystical dimension, whether in religion, African mythology, or musical forms like hymns, blues, and jazz. Because the ‘mystical' presented a greater sense of freedom, in contrast to the oppression of the ‘political' and the ‘social'. The black avant-garde of the 60’s was rooted in the contemporary popular African American spiritual practices. James Stewart, in his essay â€Å"The Development of the Black Revolutionary Artist† in the anthology of Afro-American writing Black Fire, stresses on the nature and significance of the spirit: That spirit is black That spirit is non-white. That spirit is patois. That spirit is Samba. Voodoo. The black Baptist church in the South. (quoted in Smethurst 65) Moving from spirit, when it comes to the word the twentieth century black poetry involved references to both colloquial black speech, in terms of style and structure,. The young black poets of the 1960s focused much more heavily on the colloquial aspects of speech than their predecessors. They stressed   on the contemporary idiom of urban blacks, on references to specifically black culture and cultural practices, and on a realistic depiction of life in inner cities. These poems embodied a form of language and a depth of experience that was unfamiliar to most white readers. It is also clear that often the intent of the poem involved, at least in part, shocking the readers. During the epoch of slavery, white Americans regarded speech differences as an indication of black inferiority. Black people were stereotypically presented as speaking gibberish, and when they did make attempts at standard English, the results was scoffed at. Many nineteenth-century African American writers concentrated on demonstrating their command of standard English as a political defense against equating black speech with intellectual inferiority.   But others such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Charles Chesnutt used dialect to express the authenticity of expressive black vernacular. During the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, and subsequently in a more intensified manner in the 1960s Black Arts Movement, African American writers became more intent on celebrating and capturing the nuances of black speech. Arguably, the most influential of the new black poets was Amiri Baraka. Born Leroi Jones in Newark, New Jersey, in 1934, Baraka published under that name until 1968. After graduating from Howard University, Baraka served in the Air Force until the age of twenty-four, when he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City and became part of the avant-garde literary scene, making friends with poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson, and Frank O'Hara. During this period, Baraka was more drawn to the poetry and ideas of the Beats and other white avant-garde movements than to the politics of black separatism; he married a white woman; he wrote poems, essay, plays, and a novel within the context of the Beat counterculture; and he edited two magazines. However, Baraka's interest in racial issues was clear even in the early 1960s, as evidenced in his historical study Blues People: Negro Music in White America (1963) and in plays such Dutchman (1964) and The Slave (1964). In the mid-1960's, Baraka was deeply affected by the death of Malcom X, and subsequently changed the focus of his life. He divorced and moved to Harlem, he converted to the Muslim faith and took a new name (Charters 469). He then founded the Black Arts Repertory Theater/School in New York City and Spirit House in Newark. He became the leading spokesman for the Black Arts movement. He was nearly beaten to death in the Newark race riots of 1967. In 1968, Baraka co-edited Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing, which included social essays, drama, and fiction as well as poetry. In 1969, he published his poetry collection Black Magic Poetry: 1961 – 1967. Baraka's poetry changed radically during the 1960s, as he turned from a vague sense of social alienation to a revolutionary vision which reflected deep affinity to black culture. Baraka's most famous poem is â€Å"Black Art† (1966) and has been called the signature poem of the Black Arts Movement, though critics tend to be strongly divided on it. Fuck poems and they are useful, wd they shoot come at you, love what you are, breathe like wrestlers, or shudder strangely after pissing. We want live words of the hip world live flesh & coursing blood. Hearts Brains Souls splintering fire. We want poems like fists beating niggers out of Jocks or dagger poems in the slimy bellies of the owner-jews. Black poems to smear on girdlemamma mulatto bitches whose brains are red jelly stuck between ‘lizabeth taylor's toes. Stinking Whores! We want â€Å"poems that kill.† Assassin poems, Poems that shoot guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys and take their weapons leaving them dead with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland. Knockoff poems for dope selling wops or slick halfwhite politicians Airplane poems, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr †¦ tuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuh †¦ rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr †¦ Setting fire and death to whities ass. Look at the Liberal Spokesman for the jews clutch his throat & puke himself into eternity †¦ rrrrrrrr – â€Å"The Black Art† (in part) (Quoted in Brennan 2) Normal boundaries of poetic language no longer are able to convey Baraka's rage, and therefore he resorts to the use of obscenities and raw sounds – rrrr†¦. tuhtuhtuh† — thereby turning language into the verbal guns of â€Å"poems that kill.† For Baraka, poetry is a weapon; it is not simply meant to create an aesthetic effect, it is meant to push some social and political cause. Poetry is not just meant to touch hearts and move people emotionally, but stir their souls and move them into action. Poetry is meant to raise consciousness of the masses and bring change into the world. Poetry is not a means of entertainment, it is a way to enlightenment, and beyond that, a path to empowerment. Baraka’s poems are raw, and often they mean war. Along with Baraka, perhaps the most significant poet to emerge from the Black Arts Movement was Audre Lorde. In addition to several volumes of poetry, beginning with The First Cities (1968), Lorde wrote essay (collected in her book Sister Outsider), an autobiographical account of her battle with cancer (The Cancer Journals), and a fictionalized â€Å"biomythography† (Zami: A New Spelling of My Name) (Wilson 95). Lorde's poems deal with her personal experience as an African American woman (she called herself, â€Å"a black feminist lesbian mother poet†), as well as with the contemporary experience of blacks both in the United States and throughout the world. Lorde is known for her evocative and very powerful use of imagery. In the poem â€Å"Coal† (1968), she says, â€Å"I am Black because I came from the earth's inside/ now take my word for jewel in the open light.† Lorde's poems are her â€Å"jewels† that allow her to reflect words outward into the world. Baraka's poem â€Å"SOS† (1966), begins with the words â€Å"Calling black people/ calling all black people, man woman child/ wherever you are† (Quoted in Collins, Crawford 29). The Black Arts Movement was above all a call to the black people to arouse themselves to action. It was an ideological platform.   It concentrated on the black experience, the oppression and injustice suffered by African Americans. In a critical essay on Baraka's â€Å"Black Art,† Brennan (4) says that art operates, that is to say, can operate, as a revolution. It has the power to destroy the status quo so that   a new reality is created. It was to this end — to create a new reality — that the poets of the Black Art movement struggled, albeit with very limited success. The movement did not last for long, but had a considerable impact on changing the perceptions of Americans toward the function and meaning of literature. Works Cited: Brennan, Sherry. â€Å"On the sound of water: Amiri Baraka's â€Å"Black Art† – Critical Essay† African American Review,   Summer-Fall, 2003. May 22, 2007, from Charters, Ann. The Portable Sixties Reader. New York  : Penguin Books, 2003 Collins, Lisa Gail and Margo Natalie Crawford. New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement. New York : Rutgers State University, 2005 Leon, David De. Leaders from the 1960s: A Biographical Sourcebook of American Activism. Westport, CT : Greenwood Press, 1994 Neal, Larry. â€Å"The Black Arts Movement.† A Turbulent Voyage: Readings in African-American Studies. Ed. Floyd Windom Hayes. Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000. 236-267. Smethurst, James Edward. The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s (The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture). University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Woodard, Komozi. A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics. The University of North Carolina Press, 1999 ——–.   â€Å"Amiri Baraka, the Congress of African People.† Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era. Ed. Peniel E.Joseph. Routledge, New York, 2006. 55-78. Wilson, Anna. Persuasive Fictions: Feminist Narrative and Critical Myth.   Cranbury, NJ : Associated University Presses, 2001 Wynter Sylvia. â€Å"On How We Mistook The Map for the Territory.† A Companion to African-American Studies. Ed. Jane Anna. Oxford : Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 107 – 118