2 Million Minutes Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

2 Million Minutes - Movie Review Example Directed by Robert Compton, Adam Raney and Chad Heeter; 2 million minutes is a documentary film which raises stark questions on the competitiveness and efficiency of education system of America.Taking examples of students from three major competing nations ought to become superpowers- America, India and China, the film addresses issues of schooling, establishing balance between education and extra-curricular activities and overall power of these nations in supplying innovative and intelligent minds (Harvard Educational Review 2011). The movie revolves around 6 students- two each from America, India and China. While American students get themselves more involved in friends and extra-curricular activities; students of India and China not only develop long term goals in fields of Science and Math, but also maintain a balance between other activities. All in all, schooling system in India and China exposes its youth to more comprehensive education and extra-curricular experience than do American system. This is why Indian and Chinese students aspire to become scientists, engineers and doctors, while American kids are dazzled by football players, actors and sports persons. Issues raised in the film The film highlights numerous issues which the American economy is exposed to. Dealing with education system and its contribution in making a nation competitive and self-sufficient; the movie revolves around seeking answers to how American system has lost its motivation of developing entrepreneurs and inventors and how parents are setting deviated priorities for their children. Lack of motivation and unclear priorities Aspirations of students take shape by prominent inventions and research work going on in the nation. America was once the land of space research, math and science geniuses which molded student aspirations to become scientists, engineers and researchers. Now when students see football players, sports persons and actors steal the show, their motivation level a nd direction has changed. This is seriously going to hurt the American economy in the long run as the latter category of careers do not make a nation self-sufficient and competitive in the fight of global reliance. Responsibility of parents In India and China, most of the poor parents want their children to be educated and independent as they themselves have been living in miserable plights. As such, both the parents and children have their goals clear and focused upon. This is not the case with American parents who have been living affluently and whose children do not understand what poverty is. Thus, American education system suffers from confusion between what parents think and what children want. Another point revealed from this discussion is the level of involvement and responsibility sharing by parents in making their children competitive globally. In India and China, parents are equally responsible for how their children fare in their exams and career. They invest time, effor t and obviously money in their child’s endeavor to fly with bright colors. American parents, however, do not take this much of their child’s academic responsibility as they prefer sports and athletics to academics. This is something which raises brows on how students are supported in their goal formation, planning and execution in America, India and China because after school or college, children learn from their home and parents. Stress taking Many experts opine that Indian parents put unnecessary pressure on their children. Students get stressed by subjects and are also not allowed to play or socialize much. To some extent, this is true. But on close observation, it is actually the need of the hour. The world has already been grappled with economic crisis, employment levels have plummeted and careers are not secure. In such circumstances, students need to be accustomed of functioning under stress conditions; otherwise hardships and challenges of life could not be fac ed. This is what Indian

Benefit from reading newspapers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Benefit from reading newspapers - Essay Example Knowledge plays a key role everywhere. The world has transformed into a global village through knowledge-based system and processes. Needless to say that knowledge has become a center point of all activities whether in office, manufacturing, services, research and development or even for household functions. And it is equally important to note that newspapers and magazines are a good source of knowledge for any individual to grow, develop and survive. School syllabus or curriculum just cannot suffice the purpose. Importance of newspaper reading can be gauged from the phrase of Emerson when he referred newspaper reading as the â€Å"second breakfast† of Americans (Lehuu, 134). In the following paragraphs, several benefits of reading newspapers and magazines are described; however, the list is not exhaustive. Newspapers provide a variety of information that ranges from current political events to economic affairs, from social to educational issues, from sporting activities to cu ltural events, from business to commerce, from fad to fashions, from weather reports to climate changes due to increased emissions and pollution impact. The list is unending as far as information and knowledge is concerned. Magazines and newspapers provide information on varied subjects much in detail presenting all pros and cons in black and white. Reading all of this, and that of our interest, boosts our knowledge enormously. Newspaper reading has other major benefits in improving our language. Newspapers help us not only in enhancing our vocabulary but also it informs how to use them correctly. Everyday reading of newspapers and magazines can increase our word power manifold related to a variety of subjects in a short period of time; that is a big task indeed! Expressing ourselves effectively, verbally and in writing, is certainly a daunting task. It is an undeniable fact that language skill is one the most useful and needed skill in one’s life regardless of position and n ature of work (Garrett, 2013). All good speakers such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King were voracious readers. It is true that they were natural speakers but much of the speaking skill was acquired by them over time through widespread reading. One who wants to become a leader needs to have a powerful and impressive oratory to communicate and put their point across effectively. Newspaper reading certainly sharpens the skill, if tried diligently. Regular newspaper reading improves one’s language comprehension skills because the reader comes across a variety of writing style, expressions, word usage, arguments; this makes the reader familiar with several ways of expressions. At times, it could be a plain and simple language on a given topic and at some other times, the piece of writing could be full of sarcasm with implied meanings. Satirical writing, full of humor is more directed towards the politicians and bureaucrats. A detective p iece of writing leaves a space for readers to make out what author wants to convey. In the beginning, a novice has to read again and again to understand the real meaning of what has been said but more we read more we increase our ability to comprehend (Garrett, 2013). Those who want to build their careers in the fields such as journalism, politics, report analyst, or a teaching profession; they need to cultivate the habit of reading newspapers and reputed

Individual Differences and Emotion Recognition Scores

Individual Differences and Emotion Recognition Scores ABSTRACT This study investigates the extent to which individual differences such as age, gender and levels of depression affect emotion recognition. Participants were tested by being shown pictures of different facial emotions – happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust and fear. Their scores were then compared against the 3 factors. The findings show significant evidence for gender and levels of depression differences, but no significant negative correlation was found for age. The findings were also supported by previous studies, except for age. The results show that the hypothesis can only be partially supported. INTRODUCTION Terracciano, Merritt, Zonderman, and Evans (2003) study tested 2 groups – African American and Caucasian of 106 and 46 participants respectively. The African American sample consisted of 51 males and 55 females and had low- socioeconomic status with an mean of 12 years of education. The Caucasian sample consisted of 24 males and 22 females with higher socioeconomic status, and an mean of 16 years of education. Two types of perception of affect task (PAT) were used – face and sentence subtask (Lane et al., 1996). The results showed that the African American group fared poorer than the Caucasian group on both the faces and sentence task. Also when education was controlled for, the differences in scores remained. The Caucasian group had significantly higher results for females over males in the face task, and also higher scores in the sentence task. However, no gender difference was found in the African American group. These results suggest that there could be also be a cu ltural variance in emotion recognition. Calder et al. (2003) study examined 48 participants, half were between 18 to 30 years old and the rest were between 58 and 70 years old. Within each age group, genders were split evenly. Also, IQ was matched between groups. There were shown a total of 60 photographs taken from the picture of facial affect series (Ekman and Friesen, 1976). Participants were shown these pictures in a random order and asked to choose the best expression label for the picture, with no time limit. Their results showed there was a significant link between emotion and age group. They also found that the older participants were significantly better at recognizing disgust. Further experiments showed that there was a clear negative relationship between recognition of facial expression and increasing age. Also, it again confirmed previous results that recognizing disgust improved with age. Comparing results between age groups showed that, there was also no significant relationship between decline in recognition scores of other emotions and age. This suggests that poorer recognition in later age might not be due to general cognitive impairment. The aim of this experiment is to determine whether individual differences like age, gender and depression levels could affect emotion recognition abilities. In the last measure –depression levels, this experiment will compare differences in scores against different facial expressions. For example, Gollan, Pane, McCloskey and Cocarro (2008) investigated patients with major depression and healthy patients, 37 and 29 participants respectively. Gender was split evenly in both groups. They measured their responses for emotion recognition task using the Picture of facial Affect (Ekman and Friesen, 1976). Their results showed that depressed patients tend to recognize neutral faces as sad faces as compared to the healthy group. However, the healthy group tend to identify neutral faces as happy faces. My hypothesis is that the ability to recognize emotions is affected by individual differences, like gender, age and levels of depression. RESULTS In this experiment, we were interested in the overall effect of gender on emotion recognition. There was one independent variable which was gender, and this was an independent measures design. The dependent variable is the sum of recognition scores, a higher score indicated better accuracy of identification. An Independent samples t-test was used. The Levene’s test of homogeneity was significant F (38, 29.01) =12.257, p=0.001. This means that the assumption of homogeneity of variance is violated. The Mann-Whitney U Test showed that there was a difference between male and female scores in recognising emotions. The mean rank of males and females was 13.75 and 27.25 respectively, z=-3.665, p Figure 1: Bar graph showing the difference in mean recognitions scores by gender. In this experiment we were interested in the relationship between age and overall emotion recognition scores. There were two variables, which was age and sum of recognition scores. A higher score indicated better accuracy of identification of emotion. The Pearson’s correlational test was used, because we want to find the relationship between two variables. The correlational test showed that there is no significant negative relationship between the two variables, r=-0.184, n= , p=0.256. Two- tailed test. Figure 2: scatterplot showing no correlation between age and sum of recognition scores. In the last experiment we were interested in the effect of level of depression on emotion recognition scores. There was one independent variable- level of depression, and 3 levels normal, mildly depressed, highly depressed by splitting the depression scores. Scores are split by 0- 9, 10-21, 22-36 respectively. The dependent variable was emotion recognition scores. A higher score indicates a better accuracy of emotion recognition. A one- way independent measures ANOVA was used. It is predicted that there would be differences between level of depression and recognition scores. Levene’s test of homogeneity was significant F (2, 37) =11.67, p A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to determine the differences between levels of depression and ability of emotion recognition for different facial expressions. A non-significant box’s M test, p = 0.001 indicated homogeneity of covariance matrices of the dependent variable across the levels of depression. At alpha level of 0.05, Wilk’s test was significant, p =0.022. This means that there are significant differences between levels of depression on the ability to recognize emotions. The Levene’s test of homogeneity was only significant for scores of expression of anger, disgust and happiness (p =0.007, 0.002 and Thus, the findings show that there is significant difference between levels of depression and emotion recognition. Also, there is significant difference between the levels of depression and accuracy of disgusted expression recognition scores. Figure 3: Mean total sum of recognition scores for the groups, where 0 represents normal, 1 represents mild and 2 represents high level of depression. DISCUSSION This study has found evidence that suggests individual differences, for example gender and levels of depression affects emotion recognition. However, there were no significant correlations for age. The findings from the first experiment suggest that there was significant difference in performance between genders. It suggests that females were more accurate overall at identifying emotions compared to males. It is consistent with our prediction that individual differences have an effect on emotion recognition. Our findings of females with significant higher mean scores also support Terracciano et al. (2003) study that had similar results within the Caucasian group. In the second experiment, the results suggest that there is no negative relationship between age and emotion recognition scores. These findings are not consistent with our predictions that individual differences will affect ability for emotion recognition. However, our findings also support the study of Calder et al. (2003) that also had no significant correlation between age and emotion recognition. This could suggest that emotion recognition is not a dependent variable of age. Finally, in the last experiment the findings support our hypothesis that individual differences affect emotion recognition. The findings were similar to those of Gollan et al. (2008) to a certain extent. Gollan et al. (2008) found that depressed participants had a negative processing bias for facial expressions. However, evidence in our study suggests that highly depressed participants were only significantly better in accurately recognizing disgusted expressions. Thus, from the evidence we can see that our hypothesis is only partially supported. Furthermore, a correlational test only confirms a relationship exists, it does not show a definite cause and effect. Also, the number of highly depressed participants is not equal in proportion to the whole sample. It also has a small sample size and this could result in sampling error, thus making our results unreliable. This could explain lack of other differences found between other expression scores and levels of depression. Future research should also explore cultural differences between emotion recognition. The study by Terracciano et al. (2003) found differences in performance between African American and the Caucasian group. Although one possible reason could be, that the differences in results is due to better environmental factors in the Caucasian group. Further experiments have to be carried out to determine if there was a cultural effect on emotion recognition, or if it was due to other variables. Also, another study by Matsumoto (1989) examined 15 cultures and compared t heir scores against 4 factors – Power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and masculinity. All four factors vary differently between cultures. By comparing their correlation we can determine if there is a culture effect on emotion recognition. Matsumoto (1989) found that there were significant negative correlations between power distance and intensity ratings of negative emotions. Also, a positive correlation between individualism and intensity ratings of anger and fear, but no significant correlation for uncertainty avoidance was found. Although Matsumoto (1989) did not find full support for his hypothesis, it is still useful to explore this area of study. Examining cultural differences in emotion recognition is useful as it can be applied to real life uses in our global environment. The experiment has shown that this hypothesis has not been fully supported. Thus, we cannot conclude that there is a definite effect of individual differences on emotion recognition. REFERENCES American Psychiatric Association (1994) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders(4th ed). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Caldera, A.J., Keanea, J., Manlya, T., Sprengelmeyerb, R., Scott, S., Nimmo-Smitha, I. Young, A.W. (2003). Facial expression recognition across the adult life span, Neuropsychologia, 41, 195–202. Ekman, P. Friesen, W.V. (1976). Pictures of Facial Affect. Palo Alto CA:Consulting Psychologists Press. Gollan, J.K., Pane, H.T., McCloskey, M.S. Coccaro, E.F. (2008) Identifying differences in biased affective information processing in major depression.Psychiatry Res, 159,18–24. Hamilton, M. (1967) Development of a rating scale for primary depressive illness. Br J Soc Clin Psychol,6, 278-296. Lane, R.D., Sechrest, L., Reidel, R., Weldon, V., Kaszniak, A. Schwartz, G.E. (1996). Impaired Verbal and Nonverbal Emotion Recognition in Alexithymia, Psychosomatic Medicine, 58, 203-210. Matsumoto, D. (1989). Cultural influences on the perception of emotion. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 20, 92–105. Terracciano, A., Merritt, M., Zonderman, A.B., Evans, M.K. (2003). Personality Traits and Sex Differences in Emotion Recognition among African Americans and Caucasians. Annals New York Academy of Sciences, 1000, 309–312.

The United States from 1865 to 1950 Essay example -- essays research p

The United States changed dramatically from 1865 to 1950. Many changes occurred in industrialization, foreign affairs, government, as well as in society and culture. The events that took place within this time period helped shape this country into what it is today. Industrial development began with the railroad, with the help of Republican governments, who provided subsidies, loans and tax exemptions to railroad corporations. Over 52,000 miles of railroad were laid all over the nation between 1854 and 1879. Railroads stimulated growth. They required many resources to build, such as coal, wood, glass, rubber, and brass. Most importantly, the railroad connected the country. Although small factories were already up and running three decades before the Civil War, it wasn’t until after the 1850’s that the industrial economy boomed. Larger factories that produced goods to sell nationally and internationally were being built. These factories transformed the United States from a farming nation into the most industrialized nation in the world. There were advantages and disadvantages to this new industrial order. One disadvantage is the damage that industrialization did to the environment. Forests were cut to make way for big factories which, in some cases, left rivers, such as those in the Northeast, toxic. Another disadvantage was the working conditions. Industrial workers were overworked and underpaid. In 1890, an unskilled worker took home $1.50 for a ten hour work day. Children were exploited, working 60 hour work weeks and taking home a third of what an adult male made. African Americans faced an even greater challenge at work, discrimination at the workplace. They were given menial jobs and paid less than wh... ... case, Plessy vs. Ferguson, made it to the Supreme Court. The court ruled that segregation was not discrimination as long as the accommodations for both races were â€Å"separate but equal.† In 1954, the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education overturned the Plessy case. In 1894, African-American males were given the right to vote, even before women. In 1917, women were picketing in front of the White House for a right to vote. Some women became militants and initiated violence for which they were thrown in jail. Women were granted the right to vote in the United States in 1920. The United States went through a lot between 1865 and 1950. It has seen many changes in industrialization, foreign policy, government, and society and culture. I believe that these events, along with many, many others, have shaped the United States into the great nation it is today.

Community Service Organization in Florida Essay

The aspect of community service plays an important role in the contemporary community as this serve the most critical and significant needs of the public through actual interaction and organization dedication. Community service organizations are mainly established to provide effective and efficient public works for the benefits of the society on a non-profit agenda. These organizations are motivated by their selfless intentions to address the critical needs of the public, which they find to be overlooked by the general social system. As founded by individuals who are motivated to cater to the needs of the common people, community service organization becomes the tool sufficing for the intricate needs of certain individuals in different aspects. In the state of South Florida, the Jewish Community Services manifests to be an important community organization addressing senior adult needs in their locality. The JCS organization has many service pursuits ranging from healthcare, employments assistance, rehabilitation, food services and others, which are all viewed to be among the important social service needs in the Florida state. As this state tends to rapidly progress, their general social system tends to overlook certain social needs, which are still important in the humanitarian aspect. Because of this, organizations such as the Jewish Community Services are founded to attend to their certain community services for selfless idealism. Indeed, this organization is making an important contribution for the betterment of their society establishing them as an important cogwheel in the Florida’s humanitarian aspect. Organizations such as the JCS give off important social services without expecting financial commensuration from their target patients as part of their idealism for selfless contribution. As such, it is only appropriate to give due support to the cause of these organizations namely the JCS. Putting in contributions and manpower involvement to their cause will further enhance their effectiveness and efficiency towards addressing their purpose in the Florida’s social community. Indeed, through participating or contributing to the activities and programs of the JCS social service organization, every individual can realize a humanitarian purpose of selflessly addressing the critical needs of others for the betterment of their life as human beings. Bibliography Jewish Community Services of South Florida. October 23, 2007. http://www. jcsfl. org/.

Is It Fair to Criticise General Haig as a Donkey Who Led Lions

Is it fair to criticize General Haig as a donkey who led lions? Douglas Haig was a General during World War One. There is much controversy over General Haig’s reputation due to the high level of losses during his battles in command. Many people agree with David Lloyd George’s attitude of Haig and many other British Generals of World War One. They are said to be â€Å"donkeys†, incompetents who sent the â€Å"lions† (the soldier) into futile bloody battles. Many popular books, films and television programs also agree with David Lloyd George.The sad truth, however, was between two evenly matched opponents, that there was no other way of solving the conflict. There is sufficient evidence to indicate that that Douglas Haig was a poor General, or a donkey. The evidence is that General Haig, along with many other Generals, were used to handling small-scale forces in colonial warfare. They had a lot to learn about this type of warfare, for which they were very un prepared. Furthermore, communications were poor, and armies were too big and dispersed to be commanded by a General himself.Haig should have, however, made sure that all his soldiers knew what the plan was before they set off, and Haig should have planned how he was going to communicate with them. Moreover, if the infantry and artillery did manage to hit the enemy Haig lacked a fast moving force to use the situation effectively. Additionally, General Haig’s 1914 tactics had yet to catch up with the range and effectiveness of modern artillery and the latest machine guns. Likewise, Haig learnt the wrong lesson from previous attacks, instead of persisting with short times of extreme amounts of fire.Haig used heavier guns and longer bombardments that just churned up the ground and eliminated the element of surprise. Haig was not able to accept information passed on to him, a great example of this was when it was suggested that much of the barbed wire on the Somme was not cut, he admitted that himself, but he still continued with the attack. Another example of this was during Aube Ridge, when he also knew the wire was not cut in 1915, but he insisted the attack should continue and 1,000 men lost their lives for no gain.Not to mention, Haig’s ordering of successive attacks on the Somme during October and November 1916, with the ground reduced to a boggy area that gave way underfoot, achieved nothing but a degradation of morale and manpower. In 1917 other Generals were telling Haig that it was pointless to continue. No matter, Haig continued to hammer away for a further three months. Haig consistently told his soldiers that German morale and manpower were on the verge of collapse and that just one more push could break the enemy.To Haig’s defense it can be said that his army played a main part in defeating the German forces in the crucial battles of 1918. Furthermore, the Somme and Passchendaele, which are battles that have been known as unnecess ary murder of British troops, had sensible strategy, not least in the amount of damage they inflicted on the Germans. Moreover, Haig was not given a professional force; he was given a citizen army, which had less training and preparation for the battles. Additionally, the French tended to decide what to do during the battles, even though Haig was an independent commander.Besides, Germany had been working on placing high tech weapons onto the battlefield (quick-firing artillery and machine guns) and also low-tech defenses (trenches and barbed wire), which made Haig’s job considerably harder. At the battle of Loos, Sir John French wanted personal control of reserves. He therefore didn’t allow Haig (commander on the spot) to have them until it was too late, and the attack consequently failed causing thousands of casualties. Not to mention, at the battle of Neuve Chappelle, poor communications hampered the ability of Haig and the British Commander Sir John French, to send in reserves where they were needed.Also, when General Haig wanted to attack in Flanders, around Ypres, where the British army was closer to supplies and also to strategic targets just behind the German’s lines (coastal ports and coal mines). However, for the sake of unity in the alliance with France, the politicians at the time decided that the attack must come on the River Somme simply because this was where the British and French armies met in the trench line. The blame for the slaughter cannot, therefore, be placed entirely on Douglas Haig himself, simply because it was not his plan to attack on the River Somme.In addition, the German commanders would be fighting on ground they knew well, they also had the advantage of telephone cable which was deeply buried and therefore harder to cut. The German generals would therefore be able receive information far more quickly than their British counterparts. In conclusion, I think it is fair to criticize General Haig as a donkey who led lions. This is justifiable because Haig was often unprepared for the battle where he was responsible for thousands of men.Communication was a big problem for Haig; he did not insure that his soldiers were able to communicate messages during battle, which meant that soldiers were left confused, not understanding what there next plan of action was. Furthermore, General Haig’s had not been able to catch up with modern artillery and machine guns, which meant his battle tactics were often old fashioned and ineffective. Moreover, Haig was not able to accept intelligence that was passed on to him which meant he made drastic decisions, which would lead unsuspecting men to their deaths.