Constructing and Supporting a Collaborative Learning Culture Essay

Introduction In our public school system, it is important for leaders to act as guides of change and transformation that leads an institution through the constant and ever changing society. By guiding the school through the process, a leader becomes a servant of the institution, rather than a dictatorial figurehead. It is important that school leaders gain the approval and support of their staffs while implementing any changes that need to occur. This is best achieved by using a collaborative method of leadership that results in a delegation of authority to members of the staff, who normally might not be in a leadership capacity. By giving giving the teachers and other stakeholders the opportunity to make decisions about the general direction of the school, a leader creates a situation where these collaborators become supporters and they will work to make the changes necessary. (Kohm, 2009) This is a development of trust and helps to create an atmosphere of respect that can be very v aluable as the leader sometimes needs to use that respect, like currency, to move the staff into areas of discomfort revolving around the ideas of sharing their educational practices, including both successes and failures, with the rest of the professional staff. Discussion There are many models of collaboration that can be effective at reforming a school and are highly effective. The Professional learning Community (PLC) model is very popular and has become nearly a brand name to describe collaborative models used in education. This model allows the school to be broken into many different PLC groups along many different lines of data, and then reformed as necessary. Most excellent PLC programs look at student data on a regul... ...es. Educational Leadership, 67(2), 67-72. Lath, S. (2010). A study of the occupational stress among teachers. International Journal Of Educational Administration, 2(2), 421-432. Stanley, A. (2011). Professional development within collaborative teacher study groups: pitfalls and promises. Arts Education Policy Review, 112(2), 71-78. Taylor, T., Martin, B. N., Hutchinson, S., & Jinks, M. (2007). Examination of leadership practices of principals identified as servant leaders. International Journal Of Leadership In Education, 10(4), 401-419. Waldron, N. L., & McLeskey, J. (2010). Establishing a collaborative school culture through comprehensive school reform. Journal Of Educational & Psychological Consultation, 20(1), 58-74. Wayne, D. (2008). Alive and well: Optimizing the fitness of an organization. Performance Improvement, 47(5), 21-26.

Ethical Issue in Pharmacy

The ethical duty of a pharmacy is to promote a patient’s best interest. However, certain obvious ethical issues will arise. Within any business involved in bulk purchasing the issue of unconscious theft will also occur. The following paper focuses on the application of ethical theories that supports as well as argues the behavior within Chaguanas Drug Mart. Chaguanas Drug Mart was established in 2008 and is no ordinary pharmacy since it provides more than your medical needs such as beautiful unusual gifts. The store stocks a range of alternative products, including pet care items, comfort food, household appliances, paper products, diabetic foods and a cosmetic counter. It is located on 10 Chaguanas Main Road which is a central location that conveniently attracts customers. Chaguanas Drug Mart believes its greatest asset is loyal, hard-working people who cooperate in a spirit of teamwork to help the company grow and prosper. Ethics involves identifying, differentiating, and defending concepts of right and wrong. The following paper focuses on [1]ethical dilemmas which are also called an ethical paradox within a pharmaceutical business by focusing on the relationship between law and ethics and applying the key ethical theories which derive from normative ethical systems which are broken down into four categories which are deontological, teleological, utilitarianism and relativism. Dilemma 1- Pharmacy technicians’ and floor employees access to controlled substances The drugs prescribed by a qualified medical professional are known as prescription drugs. The explosion of prescribing and consuming legal narcotics and controlled drugs is known as drug diversion which has become an ethical dilemma within the pharmaceutical industry. Within Chaguanas Drug Mart, taking prescription drugs without the necessary doctor’s prescription has become a justifiable norm. However, whether it is obtained initially for a legitimate medical purpose, there are ethical implications. According to Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) deontological or duty-based ethics had an interesting theory that places special emphasis on the relationship between duty and the morality of human actions. This ethical theory is applied to the issue of filling prescriptions for narcotic analgesics or pain relievers; benzodiazepines or therapeutic tranquilizers; stimulants; and barbiturates or sedatives by the technicians within Chaguanas Drug Mart as unlawful. It is stated that prescription drug diversion involves the unlawful channelling of regulated pharmaceuticals from legal sources to the illicit marketplace, which according to the Kantian rule under categorical imperative human beings occupy a special place in creation, and morality can be summed up in one ultimate commandment of reason, or imperative, from which all duties and obligations derive such as a prescription drug may only be sold by a pharmacist when authorised by a written prescription from a medical practitioner. Pharmacist believe they are serving man kind by issuing life-saving drugs and ensuring that people who need their products have access to them and consequentialism supports this belief. Consequentialists are the view that normative properties depend only on consequences. Therefore an ethical analysis is only worthwhile if it ultimately leads to action and is simply a basis for making individual decisions, where the bottom line is â€Å"to each his own. Jeremy Bentham (1789), John Stuart Mill (1861), and Henry Sidgwick (1907) indicate Act Consequentialism is the claim that an act is morally right if and only if that act maximizes the good, that is, if and only if the total amount of good for all minus the total amount of bad for all is greater than this net amount for any incompatible act available to the agent on that occasion. The issuing of prescription drugs without the doctor’s permission is a good that has outweighed the risks since most patients cannot afford another vi sit or are still experiencing pain after the prescription has â€Å"run out†. Many customers are relatives or friends of the workers and are aware that the drugs are the only source to relief but do not go to the doctor for the necessary documents since there is easy access to the items such as antibiotics. Those who work in the medical field know that protecting patient safety is the ultimate ethical principle; therefore the argument is twofold where technicians face many ethical dilemmas because the total amount of good minuses the total the amount of bad however Kantian argues that the wrong thing regardless of how justifiable is till the wrong thing. The ethical dilemma is resolved however by placing inventory checks on all prescription drugs within the business which will manage the supply and movement of stock/Inventory. Although this may not completely solve the current issue, it will certainly limit the level of diversion. Dilemma 2- Employee monitoring in the work environment Employee monitoring has emerged as a necessity and is the act of watching and monitoring employees’ actions during working hours using employer equipment/property (Raposa & Mujtaba, 2003). Within the company, employees have disregarded the term staff discount by practicing in unethical behaviour which encompasses stealing the drugstore supplies as well as time theft. Although time theft can be a more subtle form of unethical behaviour, according to Aristotle’s perspective in applying moral absolutism to this dilemma, it is seen that any way you look at it, taking something that doesn’t belong to you is stealing. Moral absolutism is the ethical view that certain actions are absolutely right or wrong, regardless of other contexts such as their consequences or the intentions behind them which is also supported by Immanuel Kant’s deontology. Kant's argument that to act in the morally right way, one must act from duty begins with an argument that the highest good must be intrinsically good. However, moral absolutism can be debated with relativism which is subjective and includes concepts such as utilitarianism and idealism. Utilitarianism can be applied since it is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its outcome. Mill's (1806-1873) rule utilitarianism is much more relative in that he encourages people to do acts that are pleasurable to themselves as long as they are what he calls a â€Å"higher pleasure†. Moral Absolutism versus utilitarianism is two extreme ethical approaches to reality. While they are both valid and supported by facts, they are very contrasting in their views with regards to employee monitoring in the work environment. Most employees consider themselves a paragon of virtues – loyal, hard working and honest, however even minor pilfering from the office amounts to stealing and has become the norm, not the exception at Chaguanas Drug Mart. Most employee theft is as a result of an employee being dissatisfied with the job or circumstances within the job and this ethical dilemma could be resolved by speaking with the employees to gain awareness of job satisfaction and how to make the job more rewarding. Many companies, because of lack of controls and a casual attitude toward employee theft, provide an inviting opportunity for an employee who has a tendency to steal. In many cases, employees, provided with a wealth of opportunities to steal, consider company property as their own. Although (Murphy, 1993) indicated that The propensity for employees to steal seems to be related to the individual's need, opportunity, skills, and attitude toward committing an illegal act, a study performed by Deloitte & Touche USA Ethics & Workplace (2007) showed there is a strong relationship between ethics and work-life balance. In fact 91 percent of respondents stated they believe â€Å"workers are more likely to behave ethically at work when they have a work-life balance. † The moral development of individuals (Greenberg, 2002) concerning ethical maturity to choose right from wrong in ethical dilemmas was found to be inversely related to theft. Research on employee deviant behaviour has shown that workers model their behaviours on those of their co-workers or work group members (Robinson & O'Leary-Kelly 1998), and the ethical concepts applied the importance of employer to employee communication to instil what is wrong even though it may appear to be morally right as in the case of issuing prescription drugs without a prescription which is justifiable as doing the right thing. Since employee theft is a critical problem in many organizations (Murphy, 1993), any additional understanding of its causes and correlates assists in taking action to decrease theft rates.

Famous Examples of Early Interracial Marriage

Famous Examples of Early Interracial Marriage The U.S. Supreme Court did not lift the nationwide ban on interracial marriage until June 12, 1967. But years before the high court’s pivotal decision, dozens of celebrities in and out of Hollywood partnered with couples of different racial backgrounds. This list includes 12  actors, athletes, authors, singers and socialites collectively who crossed the color line for love long before interracial marriage became widely accepted. Jack Johnson’s White Wives During a time in which black men could be lynched for even looking at a white woman the â€Å"wrong way,† boxer Jack Jackson started romantic relationships with several white women. After romancing a series of prostitutes who were black and white alike, Johnson married New York socialite Etta Terry Duryea  in Pittsburgh in January 1911. The couple tried to keep their marriage a secret, but a year after the interracial couple tied the knot word of their union spread back to Brooklyn. The abusive nature of her relationship with Johnson, the death of her father, disapproval of her interracial marriage and a history of depression all likely contributed to Duryea’s decision to kill herself in September 1912. Just weeks after Duryea’s suicide, Johnson started a romance with 18-year-old white prostitute Lucille Cameron. Due to outrage over his relationship, Johnson was arrested for breaking the Mann Act, which made it illegal to travel across state lines â€Å"for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose,† according to PBS. When broadly applied, the Mann Act could be used to outlaw all premarital and extramarital sexual relationships that involved interstate travel, PBS reported. On Dec. 4, 1912, Johnson married Cameron. The following year he was convicted of violating the Mann Act for his relationship with Cameron. The couple lived abroad for several years, with the boxer spending nine days in jail related to his Mann Act conviction. Cameron filed for divorce from Johnson four years later because the known womanizer had been unfaithful to her. In August 1925, Johnson married Irene Pineau, who was also white. Johnson and Pineau lived much of their marriage in Europe. They remained a couple until the boxer’s death in a car accident in 1946. In 1964, another man known for his fighting skills would marry interracially. That year Bruce Lee married Linda Emery, a white woman. The biopic â€Å"Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story† touches on some of the difficulties the interracial couple faced, including the disapproval of her parents. Kip Rhinelander Marries Mixed-Race Maid The New York social world was scandalized in Fall 1924 when Leonard Kip Rhinelander, heir to $100 million family fortune, married Alice Jones, a domestic and daughter of a black man and a white woman. Rhinelander, 21 at the time of his marriage, had suffered from anxiety and met Jones during a hospital stay. â€Å"Initially he was just dallying with a servant, as was an aristocrat’s long-established privilege, but then affection had bloomed, and then everlasting true love,† the New York Daily News reported in a recap of the scandal in 1999. â€Å"The father had sent the boy out west for two years to get over his fool-headed infatuation. But ardor did not subside. Now Kip had returned east, and he and Alice had eloped.† At first, Rhinelander did not seem to care what society thought of his marriage. After six weeks of matrimony, however, Rhinelander did not come home to the small apartment he shared with Jones and filed to have his marriage to her annulled. Rhinelander’s lawyers accused Jones of concealing her Caribbean heritage and passing for white to lure him into a romantic relationship. The jurors ultimately sided with Jones but not before she was subjected to the humiliating task of disrobing before them to prove that Rhinelander must have known that she was a woman of color all along. In 1929, Rhinelander and Jones finalized their divorce, with the latter receiving a small monthly pension for her trouble. Rhinelander died of pneumonia seven years later at the age of 33. Jones lived until 1989. Neither remarried. Richard Wright’s Interracial Marriages Richard Wright, the author of literary classics Black Boy and Native son, married twice- both to white women of Russian Jewish ancestry. On Aug. 12, 1939, Wright married Dhimah Meidman, a ballet dancer. At first, he kept the marriage under wraps, reluctant to let the public know about his nuptials to a white woman. The marriage disintegrated after just a year in part because Wright felt that his wife expected to him provide a lavish lifestyle her. Moreover, his relationship with Meidman overlapped with his relationship with Ellen Poplar (also known as Polpowitz), an organizer for the Communist Party. Wright had been involved with Poplar prior to proposing to Meidman. When Wright separated from Meidman, he and Poplar resumed their romance, living together before they wed on March 12, 1941, in Coytesville, N.J. None of his family members were present nor was his close friend Richard Ellison, the author of Invisible Man fame who’d served as best man at Wright’s first weddi ng. According to the book Richard Wright: The Life and Times, Wright feared that his marriage to yet another white woman would make headlines. That book also revealed that Poplar’s family largely disowned her for deciding to marry a black man. Her father never met Wright and her sister cut off contact with Poplar because of the interracial union, according to the biography. Poplar’s brother did support the relationship, however. Wright and his bride would spend most of their lives in France. They had two children, Julia and Rachel. Wright was far from the only African writer to marry interracially before blacks fully realized their civil rights in the U.S. African American. Maya Angelou married Enistasious Tosh Angelos in 1951, Lorraine Hansberry married Robert Nemiroff in 1953, and in March 1967, just months before the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the ban on interracial marriage, Alice Walker married Melvyn Lowenthal. Lena Horne Keeps Marriage Secret Actress and singer Lena Horne married Lennie Hayton, a white man, and her manager, in 1947, but kept the marriage a secret for three years. When the public found out about their interracial marriage three years later, the couple not only received criticism but threats and obscene mail as well, according to the New York Times. â€Å"Mr. Hayton built a wall around their California house and bought a shotgun,† the Times reported Horne said that she and her husband had some rocky times because of racism. She told the Times she sometimes viewed her husband as â€Å"foreign white creature.† Other times she took out the rage she had against white racists on her husband. She also admitted to marrying Hayton for opportunistic reasons. â€Å"At first, I became involved because I thought Lennie would be useful to my career,† she said. â€Å"He could get me into places no black manager could. It was wrong of me, but as a black woman, I knew what I had against me. He was a nice man who wasnt thinking all these things, and because he was a nice man and because he was in my corner, I began to love him.† Several actors and singers married across the color line during this period, including Diahann Carroll, who married Monte Kay in 1956; Sammy Davis Jr., who married May Britt in 1960, Eartha Kitt, who married John William McDonald in 1960; Tyne Daly, a white actress who married Georg Stanford Brown, an Afro-Cuban, in 1966.

Free Essays on Edna

Edna Pontellier is a respectable woman of the late 1800s who not only acknowledges her sexual desires, but also has the strength and courage to act on them. Breaking through the role appointed to her by society, she discovers her own identity independent of her husband and children. Many of Kate Chopin’s other stories feature passionate, unconventional female protagonists, but none presents a heroine as openly rebellious as Edna. The details and specifics of Edna’s character are key to understanding the novel and its impact on generations of readers. At the beginning of the novel, Edna exists in a sort of semi-conscious state. She is comfortable in her marriage to LÃ ©once and unaware of her own feelings and ambitions. Edna has always been a romantic, enamored with a cavalry officer at a very young age, in love with a man visiting a neighboring plantation in her teens, and infatuated with a tragedian as a young woman. But she saw her marriage to LÃ ©once as the end to her life of passion and the beginning of a life of responsibility. Although she expected her dreams of romance to disappear along with her youth, her fantasies and yearnings only remain latent, re-emerging on Grand Isle in the form of her passion for Robert Lebrun. The people Edna meets and the experiences she has on Grand Isle awaken desires and urges for music, sexual satisfaction, art, and freedom that she can no longer bear to keep hidden. Like a child, Edna begins to see the world around her with a fresh perspective, forgetting the behavior expected of her and ignoring the effects of her unconventional actions. Yet Edna is often childish as well as childlike: she harbors unrealistic dreams about the possibilities of a wild adulterous romance without consequences, and she fails to consider the needs and desires of anyone but herself. Her flagrant disregard of reality is revealed when she mocks Robert’s apprehensions about adultery, and when she leaves her chi... Free Essays on Edna Free Essays on Edna Edna Pontellier is a respectable woman of the late 1800s who not only acknowledges her sexual desires, but also has the strength and courage to act on them. Breaking through the role appointed to her by society, she discovers her own identity independent of her husband and children. Many of Kate Chopin’s other stories feature passionate, unconventional female protagonists, but none presents a heroine as openly rebellious as Edna. The details and specifics of Edna’s character are key to understanding the novel and its impact on generations of readers. At the beginning of the novel, Edna exists in a sort of semi-conscious state. She is comfortable in her marriage to LÃ ©once and unaware of her own feelings and ambitions. Edna has always been a romantic, enamored with a cavalry officer at a very young age, in love with a man visiting a neighboring plantation in her teens, and infatuated with a tragedian as a young woman. But she saw her marriage to LÃ ©once as the end to her life of passion and the beginning of a life of responsibility. Although she expected her dreams of romance to disappear along with her youth, her fantasies and yearnings only remain latent, re-emerging on Grand Isle in the form of her passion for Robert Lebrun. The people Edna meets and the experiences she has on Grand Isle awaken desires and urges for music, sexual satisfaction, art, and freedom that she can no longer bear to keep hidden. Like a child, Edna begins to see the world around her with a fresh perspective, forgetting the behavior expected of her and ignoring the effects of her unconventional actions. Yet Edna is often childish as well as childlike: she harbors unrealistic dreams about the possibilities of a wild adulterous romance without consequences, and she fails to consider the needs and desires of anyone but herself. Her flagrant disregard of reality is revealed when she mocks Robert’s apprehensions about adultery, and when she leaves her chi...

Foundations Rhetorical Studies Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Foundations Rhetorical Studies - Assignment Example Working through the transition period where philosophers and intelligentsia had a very significant job of unveiling the truth while refuting the theological patterns. Furthermore, the art of rhetoric also has a mounting challenge to distinguish between myths and truth, i.e. to correct the history and take a leap away from romanticism and story-telling towards the search for something that could be attributed the title of scientific realities. Also, currently the rhetoric is built on the already available research material and volumes of published work. However, back in the medieval era, the little work that had been saved was sent to the territories constituting the Muslim empire and thus rhetoricists themselves were engaged in constructing literature. Therefore, a keen and a forward-thinking rhetoricist would be driven by the desire to work in an era where new literature is being constructed and trends are being set. Philosophers and writers in the medieval era were pre-dominantly engaged in preserving storied dictated by the highest order. In other words, there was plot in the stories, a transition, character and even an end, but everything was rather dictated by the spiritual order and what they knew from scripture and the holy text. In this context, those taking a leap of faith and trying to implant newer narratives had an immense challenge. However, it is in this very accumulation of newer knowledge that an ambitious rhetoricist finds escape and reason to fill in the vacuum. Another perspective which inspires me to go back in time and live in the era is that the transition period gives an edge to alter narratives even of the present times, since that was the era where the building blocks of knowledge were placed and human race was triggered to think in un-orthodox ways. Another impeccable perspective which drives me to work in the medieval era is how the philosophers and authors werenâ€℠¢t bound by

A Critique on the Kyoto Protocols Research Paper

A Critique on the Kyoto Protocols - Research Paper Example In the discourse, global warming was specifically defined as â€Å"climate change that causes an increase in the average temperature of the lower atmosphere.   Global warming can have many different causes, but it is most commonly associated with human interference, specifically the release of excessive amounts of greenhouse gases† (ibid.). With the alarming levels of greenhouse gases continuing to increase at an unprecedented pace, scientists all over the world drastically made efforts to inform the international organizations in charge of environmental protection. An international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) deemed it of primary importance to address global warming issues through its governance and with the assistance of another international agreement, the Kyoto Protocol. According to the official website of UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol â€Å"sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amount to an average of five percent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012† (UNFCCC, 2010, par. 1). In this regard, the essay aims to proffer one’s personal opinion as to  what world leaders and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should agree on. Likewise, the essay seeks to address the following concerns, to wit: (1) is there a solution that they should commit to? If so, what is it? If not, then what should they do? (2) Why haven't the Kyoto Protocols worked? What has not worked and why? What has worked and why? (3) What should be the role of the US? And (4) what should be the role of China?   Diverse articles and publications on UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol reveal that their primary thrust is â€Å"to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will  prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.  

Similarities and differences between japan's keiretsu and south Essay

Similarities and differences between japan's keiretsu and south korea's chaebol - Essay Example These enterprises were established by the Meiji government in the late nineteenth century, as a way to invigorate Japan’s industrialization. Therefore, the main reason for the formation of these business enterprises was to respond to failures in the market. Companies owned by these zaibatsu’s were vertically organized and owned by families and sometimes, holding companies. According to Rosati (1993), trading companies and banks were the most powerful industries among the zaibatsu. This is because they controlled the distribution of goods and operations among the zaibatsu’s. The zaibatsu were abolished at the end of the Second World War by the Allied Occupation Forces, when their shares were allocated to the Japanese public, in order to promote competition and equality. Rosati points out that â€Å"during this period, however, the private sector had little funding capacity, and corporations among themselves unable to raise the capital they needed† (1993, p. 85). It was during this time that the practice of raising funds through loans from banks was embraced. Due to the low prices of shares and accumulation of capital in the private sector, corporations were exposed to acquisitions. This was further compounded by the fact that the stock owning capacity of banks was limited by the 1947 Antimonopoly Act (Rosati, 1993). Consequently, corporations had to invest somewhat equal amounts of capital among themselves to create stability among shareholders although there was no physical exchange of the money. In the 1960s, Japan joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and this led to a relaxation of capital transaction policies by the government. Since the owners of the corporations feared being taken over by foreign investors, they conducted cross ownership that brought back the links that had existed among zaibatsu groups prior to the Second World War and this led to the formation of Keiretsu groups. Keiretsu gro ups were very significant in rejuvenating the economy of Japan after the Second World War. Small industries in Japan were able to develop, despite the fact that Japan’s economy was detached for the world markets and highly monitored. Examples of keiretsus include Mitsui and Mitsubishi. South Korea's Chaebols: Origins and Features Chaebols were established by the Japanese colonial rule in Korea during the 1920s and 1930s. In fact, Korea’s Chaebols were formed in a similar way to the Japanese keiretsus. The main reason for the establishment of Chaebols was so that Japan could benefit from Korea’s economic development. The establishment of chaebols began when Japan set up privately owned businesses in Korea, but strictly controlled business procedures, license applications, and credit. Japanese rule in Korea eventually came to an end, and this gave the Korean’s freedom to adjust the business procedures and processes of the Chaebols. Dubois (2004) points out that â€Å"the effort was coordinated by president Park Chung Hee, the president of South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1976† (p. 42). Under the concept of chaebols, conglomerates usually controlled by a family were formed under a sole holding company. Each company held another company’s shares and through this, they were all interlinked. The chaebols however had no financial institutions and this required financial support from the government, since South Korea’s banks are joined together and controlled by the government.