Aristotle Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Aristotle - Essay Example Greek was the language of scholarship: it was excellent for reasoning, and since Aristotle was well brought up and educated, his language skills furnished him with the tools for analysis, calculation, interpretation, and reckoning. The Hellenistic time was when the rules of geometry were nutted out, together with the ideas for formal proof. In this area, Aristotle did a lot of thinking and discussing - which was the method of teaching of the day. Without formal rules for proving and establishing the fact, it would be impossible to formalize mathematics or science, so this was an important time in the history of mathematics. Aristotle was fundamental in establishing the ways of thinking necessary to make mathematical calculation possible, against a set of standards. Another factor that made Aristotle important is his recording of things studied, which provided evidence for those who later wrote histories of mathematics. Part of his contribution, therefore, is his perpetuating fact to enable others to read it. Fauvel and Gray, two mathematicians who did a lot of research into ancient Greek mathematics, give many extracts from Aristotle’s sources. Aristotle believed that logic must be applied to the sciences and to mathematics. ‘The sciences - at any rate the theoretical sciences - are to be axiomatised,’ he wrote. How people think mathematically is in part due to his works known as ‘Prior and Posterior Analytics’. In a simple way, this can be explained as a way to analyze, which determines the correct order in which things happen.

Sheikh Mohammed and the Making of Dubai Inc Essay

Sheikh Mohammed and the Making of Dubai Inc - Essay Example He founded the Emirates airlines that now covers over 100 destinations, and developed the thriving real estate market of Dubai. Such rapid development was primarily achieved by adopting capitalist market values, and despite the unfavorable conditions in the surrounding countries Sheikh Mohammed with his strong leadership qualities managed to turn Dubai into a story of success. However the success story of Dubai were not without its pitfalls, and there were claims of violation of human rights of thousands of laborers that had migrated from other countries in search of jobs, while there were claims by local inhabitants of the place losing its own cultural values. Besides these, the real estate business which had been one of the major driving forces behind Dubai’s astronomical economic growth was showing signs of falling apart during the global economic crises that started in 2007-2008. In order to counteract these negative aspects and maintain a stable socio-economic growth of D ubai, HH Sheikh Mohammed had to adopt tactics that integrated his skills as a business entrepreneur and a skillful business leader, with that of an effective political head of a country. Sheikh Mohammed’s leadership style and approach shows traits of a visionary leader with traits of transformational leadership qualities.... This quality is evident in Sheikh Mohammed where it is seen that while serving as Head of Police and Security, and Director of the Department of Oil, he successfully collaborated with Conoco and many other foreign companies, while concurrently dealing effectively with a large number foreign consultants, laborers, and field workers from countries across the world, residing in Dubai. An effective leader is generally motivated to seek one of the two types of power, personalized (where one looks for personal power and sense of authority) or socialized (seeks collaboration). From the aforementioned style of working, it is clear that Sheikh Mohammed looked for socialized power where he sought collaboration from firms, experts and workers worldwide. Sheikh Mohammed, through various interviews can effectively communicate and pass his messages regarding his visions and strategy, as regards growth and development of his country, and he uses it successfully to convince his own countrymen and ot her powerful leaders and businessmen all across the world. Effective leaders also must possess self-confidence, in order to create a sense of self-esteem in others working around him or her, while still preserving a high level of personal integrity. Along with this ability the leader must possess the ability to affect an organization horizontally, vertically, externally and internally. Here the leader must gain acceptance of others involved, if he or she wishes to see a particular idea come true. The capability to forge collaborative relationships and to form an atmosphere that is conducive in nature for team work, are typical characteristics of an effective leader. This characteristic is

The Industry Of Portable Music Players Media Essay

The Industry Of Portable Music Players Media Essay Nowadays, most people in the world love to listen to the music. Some of them use it for relaxation, some for inspiration and energy, but regardless of the reasons, music became an important part of our lives. This is proved by the fact that now we can meet more and more people with earphones in their ears while walking, going in subway or even working. Portable audio players are now as popular as the Beatles were in the 1960s (Biersdorfer 2009). Each era has its musical carrier. The 60s and 70s were marked by ribbons in rolls and phonograph records; 80s were marked by the advent of cassettes. Time passed and the carries changed; audio players became more portable, tech. The romance has gone away, and only practical issues remained the music moved into digital format (GreenFacts 2008). Just now we have ipod, Iriver and many more brands under which the players are produced. But thirty years ago such a thing as a portable music player, did not exist at all. There were weighty reel and cassette recorders, record players. There was no opportunity of spending time listening to favorite tracks. But the idea was hovering somewhere in the air and waited for its genius. The Japanese were the first who started to develop the idea of portable music players (Krakow 2005). Even now, not everything is known about the exact creation of the first portable music player. There are two major and quite implausible versions: according to the first one, an engineer Nobutoshi Kihara created it for the head of Sony, so he could listen to music during long trips through the ocean. According to the second the idea of a portable cassette recorder was created by Akio Morita himself (founder of Sony). Watching his children all days long listening to the stereos of their favorite the Beatles and Elvis, he need the device for listening to music, which he could take everywhere with him. He insisted player not to have recording function. And it was a bold move, considering that most of desktop cassette recorders were very popular thanks to their ability to record music (Clements 1994). Sony guessed the desire of the public. The result was an absolute bestseller. In 1979, a small cassette player Walkman TPS-L2 was released. Although it was the first of its kind, it cost not so much $ 200. The first Walkman players used magnetic audio cassettes and looked bulky a little bit. Sony first advertised that series in Japan, in 1979. Walkmans where almost always powered by two AA batteries and provided rather good quality music if the cassette was of good quality (Hart-Davis 2004). Over time, Walkman TPS-L2 was recognized as one of the greatest inventions of the company. Or even the best in history in general. According to rating of the 50 best devices created by mankind made by the magazine PC World, the first place was awarded L2, seized the gold medal even from iPod. After that Sony decided not to stop: and in 1980 gave the world the first prototype of CD. And four years later the first portable model Sony Discman D50 appeared. It cost accordingly $ 500 (Glenn 2006). The capacity of the first CD was 640 MB, and that number was not occasional. Morita made a research, which provided a very interesting data. It was found that potential buyers of CDs are the people who preferred to listen to classical music. Taking the most popular in Japan, Ninth Symphony by Beethoven, which lasts almost 74 minutes, the engineers transferred 74 minutes of 16th-bit sound into bytes, and received 640 MB (Grey 2010). While many people still think that such a size of a disc is just a technical limitation, it is not so. Some time later the discs with 700 and even 800 MB were created, although the laser parameters were not changed. One way or another, Sony has always focused on the needs of the buyer. And it was the main secret of success of the company during the period from 70s to 90s, when the vendor has acquired an impeccable reputation and tremendous respect among consumers (Lungu 2008). Bit in the 1990s the Japanese did a mistake, creating its own ATRAC audio format and new carriers Mini Disc. Work in those areas could easily turn into a success. Mini Disc was significantly less than the conventional CD, consequently, as the players for them. The first player with new carrier, Sony Walkman MD MZ1, was compact in comparison with the first CD-models. But cost too much $ 750 (Martin 2009). In general a good venture suffered from fiasco. In Japan, the new invention was greeted very warmly, but the unyielding American market categorically rejected the creation of a new Sony. Sales of mini-discs in Russia were more very poor. The market had plenty of cheap CD-players, which were much easier to use than the new Mini Disc with the new format ATRAC. The failure of the ATRAC was because of the need to transcode music from CDs to digital format individual files. That dubious necessity took away five minutes of time on the transcoding of each record. On the one hand, it was a breakthrough the recordings could be kept not on the compacts, but in the computer. But that fact also gave a big disadvantage: those days there were not so many computers and they were very slow and space on hard drive was not enough for music collections (Gross 2007). In addition, music in ATRAC was protected by a system of copy protection OpenMG the invention of Sony. Such records could not be listened to on another computer or player. The users were not satisfied by that fact. If the failure of MD-players on the ATRAC was assumed, the refusal to support released in 1995 MP3 was a colossal folly. Many companies, including Sony, underestimated the prospects for MP3. The people understood the beauty of the new format. By 1998 hard drives were already able to accommodate a small audio collection, and the computers coped with encoding audio CDs to MP3. In addition, relatively small files could be easily sent over the Internet. So, none then needed that problematic ATRAC (Ruckert 2003). So, in 1998, a rather unknown Korean company Saehan Information Systems released its first MP3-player called MPman F10. No discs were used; there was used a flash memory of 32MB. A low price and ease of filling the music through an LPT port showed that in the very near future, such players would have to become megapopular. The first MP3-player on the hard drive HanGo PJB-100 appeared a year later. It was huge as a brick (150h80h26 mm), incredibly expensive ($ 800), but with the memory of 4.8 GB. About 4500 minutes of music at a bitrate of 128 kbps (Dixon 2006). The first player with hard drive was developed by Compaq, but has begun to be made in late 1999 under license by Hango and was called Personal JukeBox. PJB-100 had anti-shock buffer and could accommodate about a hundred of CDs to the hard disk with the capacity of 4.8 GB. It was chubby black player with a screen to navigate directly to albums and songs. Player Creative Nomad Jukebox with 6 GB of capacity released in September 2000, it still weighed a lot (about 450 g), but looked like a portable CD-player. Player Creative provided an opportunity to play WAV-files and the firmware update also allowed to listen to files in Microsoft WMA (Shamoon 2009). In 2000, Kenwood has developed a portable CD-player DPC-MP727, which could play a CD with WMA-file, and in 2001 it introduced the Rio Volt combined portable CD-player capable to play both audio CD, and CDs with MP3-files. It was possible to use a simple list of songs in M3U, but players with hard drives and flash memory worked on battery power longer (Humphries 2009). The high price and smaller convenience led to the fact that removable media did not become popular in the MP3-players. That time, the company I2Go released player based on a miniature hard drive IBM MicroDrive. In the MP3-player with a small size it was possible even to insert two hard drives of 1 GB MicroDrive, but it cost $ 2000 (Keppler 2010). I2Go ceased to exist after giving its promotional samples to all the nominees at the Oscar awards ceremony in 2000. Iomega applied the same approach in players HipZip, which used much less expensive carriers Click on the 40 MB (PocketZip); cost $ 10 each. Players HipZip reproduced audio format WMA, AAC and MP3. The problem was in this: despite the fact that it was technically possible to support a capacity of 60 or 80 MB, Iomega preferred 40 MB in order more discs were bought. Alas, but to record 60 minutes of CD quality music on a disk with the capacity of 40 MB with no appreciable loss of quality is impossible (Green 2007). Sony has developed its first digital music player in 2000, but it was not named Walkman and could not play MP3-files. Player MC-P10 Music Clip MP3 encoded files to ATRAC3, used by MiniDisc (and all music devices until the production of Sony phones Sony Ericsson Walkman). Then the player was renamed to Memory Stick Walkman and got a slot for flash cards Memory Stick, but it still played only ATRAC-files. In 2001, Nike introduced its first sport player Nike PSA Play, lightweight flash-player with large buttons, wrist holder and a neoprene case. In the same year Intel released the first MP3-player with a 128 MB Pocket Concert, but it wasnt very popular. And in October 2001, Apple announced the first 5 GB iPod (Khan, Joshua 2010). So, the year of 2001 was a turning point, and certainly a landmark for the entire industry of portable players. That year, changed not only the way of listening to music, but the entire music industry changed. Instead of strange Japanese and gloomy Korean players there appeared a legendary iPod. Known for its thought-out products, Apple approached the creation of the player thoroughly: great headphones were added to iPods, also there was attached a mechanical scroll wheel and provided excellent audio chip. Later, wheel became a touch and it remains the same till today. In addition, Apple was the first that equipped the player with 1.8-inch hard disk drive of 5 GB that previously used only in subnotebooks (Sturm 2010). There were also players with the capacious hard drives, but they cost a lot, were hefty, and the volume of 20 GB was simply not needed. IPod has become the golden mean between the storage capacity, size, and adequate price. Plus, the design made by Apple couldnt remain anyone indifferent. And Sony, having lost all credibility and respect of the public, went into hibernation for almost five years during which we have not seen a single item product. Awareness of errors came rather late: only last year it was decided to abandon the format ATRAC and SonicStage. So, during the last eight years the market of portable players grew much faster than in the ` 90s. The demand for MP3 players appeared. The company Archos, was the first that established in the PMP a full color screen. Since 2004, there was the fashion on video every player then was not only to play music but movies also. Players got new functions in the Rio Karma there was a support of an alternative format OGG, which was popular in 2003. Then, Archos has done absolutely useless trick, folding player and a simple digital camera AV300. The idea, however, completely failed (Zimmer 2009). The attempt of Creative to make a smart player, also failed. UMPC ZEN PMC looked cool in 2004, but it was absolutely useless: firstly, because of the size, and secondly, because of Windows CE. The little player Diva GEM has introduced Bluetooth, but in 2004 it was unclaimed. But the year of 2005 gave us the iPod nano that is after all, the best of our days. Attractive appearance, small size, good price, quality of Apple thats the whole secret of success (AsanWay 2010). Then music players were modified with different touch-screens and other implementations. The development of media players in general is very interesting to watch you never know how things will turn will there be a new trend maker or a new, unknown function will become standard? It is difficult to guess even a year ahead, because Portable Music Players are popular now and the technology is developing very quickly.

Social Networking: Beneficial or Harmful? :: Social Networking Essays

With the advancement in technology in a short matter of time it has impacted the world in many ways such as how the world communicates and our life styles. One of the many revolutionary inventions or evolutions is called social networking sites (SNS). Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and many more, are where people gather in the internet, create a personalized profile about themselves, and interact with people around the world. With the lack of parental supervision between the ages of fourteen to seventeen, which makes one of largest demographics using social networking sites, these teens could be subjected to mature elements. Young teens between the ages of fourteen to seventeen should not be allowed to have a profile on social networking sites because they do not have the capability to make proper logical decisions. With the level of exposure that teens are facing today by joining the social networking trend, they often forget the dangers of social networking such as stalkers and pedophiles, who may use the sites as a major tool of the trade. Said dangers can befriend naà ¯ve teens and lure them into dangerous situations. For example, Raymond Wang had a friend being stalked by an unknown person through one of the social networking sites. This stalker acquired private information about her via Facebook, and it got to the point where the stalker was sending her threatening or perverted letters to her actual mailbox detailing what he would do to her. â€Å"This has really affected her a lot because now she’s scared other stalkers might do the same and she doesn't want that to happen or have anything happen to her.† (Wang 19) Even though users are given the option to make one’s profile private, there is still the looming threat that stalkers are able to gather enough informati on about the person’s whereabouts. Another similar incident happened to Regina Chau, a member of a social networking site catered to the raver lifestyle, Plurlife. When she first joined with her offline friends she liked everything about the SNS, but â€Å"[where] most of the people you accept to your friends list would probably be strangers.† (Chau 18) she had befriended a person she did not know offline and one these â€Å"friends† got a little too friendly with her; â€Å"he would keep asking over and over if I wanted to meet up with him at the next event. I found this a little creepy and did not message him back after that. Social Networking: Beneficial or Harmful? :: Social Networking Essays With the advancement in technology in a short matter of time it has impacted the world in many ways such as how the world communicates and our life styles. One of the many revolutionary inventions or evolutions is called social networking sites (SNS). Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and many more, are where people gather in the internet, create a personalized profile about themselves, and interact with people around the world. With the lack of parental supervision between the ages of fourteen to seventeen, which makes one of largest demographics using social networking sites, these teens could be subjected to mature elements. Young teens between the ages of fourteen to seventeen should not be allowed to have a profile on social networking sites because they do not have the capability to make proper logical decisions. With the level of exposure that teens are facing today by joining the social networking trend, they often forget the dangers of social networking such as stalkers and pedophiles, who may use the sites as a major tool of the trade. Said dangers can befriend naà ¯ve teens and lure them into dangerous situations. For example, Raymond Wang had a friend being stalked by an unknown person through one of the social networking sites. This stalker acquired private information about her via Facebook, and it got to the point where the stalker was sending her threatening or perverted letters to her actual mailbox detailing what he would do to her. â€Å"This has really affected her a lot because now she’s scared other stalkers might do the same and she doesn't want that to happen or have anything happen to her.† (Wang 19) Even though users are given the option to make one’s profile private, there is still the looming threat that stalkers are able to gather enough informati on about the person’s whereabouts. Another similar incident happened to Regina Chau, a member of a social networking site catered to the raver lifestyle, Plurlife. When she first joined with her offline friends she liked everything about the SNS, but â€Å"[where] most of the people you accept to your friends list would probably be strangers.† (Chau 18) she had befriended a person she did not know offline and one these â€Å"friends† got a little too friendly with her; â€Å"he would keep asking over and over if I wanted to meet up with him at the next event. I found this a little creepy and did not message him back after that.

Compare and Contrast the characterization of Virginia Woolf’s Clarrisa Dalloway Essay

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway has been rewritten a number of times and in 1999, Michael Cunningham has once again revisited the novel and has written The Hours where he traces a single day in the lives of three women. Interestingly Cunningham has fictionalized Virginia Woolf, the writer apart from the two other characters Clarrisa Vaughan and Laura Brown. The Hours is homage to Virginia Woolf and the two female characters namely Clarrisa Dalloway of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs.  Dalloway and Clarissa Vaugham of The Hours pose a number of similarities and dissimilarities and this essay delves into the commonalities and contradictions of these two characters. Young states, â€Å"The relationship between The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway is impossible to simplify; Cunningham interweaves aspects of Woolf’s life, her novel, and her theories† (38). WWoolf and Cunningham describe the life a woman called Clarrisa on a single day in June. Both these women are hosting a party and have come out to buy flowers. They happen to get a glimpse of a celebrity near the florist. Their spouses, being invited by some famous personality, have gone out to dine without taking their wives. On their way home both meet an old friend accidently. But the two women belong to entirely different background and time period. While Mrs. Clarrisa Dalloway lives in 1923 London, Mrs. Clarrisa Vaugham lives in the modern day New York. Woolf represents the modernist society of 1920s in her novel, whereas Cunningham depicts the contemporary life style in The Hours. The protagonist of The Hours Clarrisa Vaugham shares her first name with Woolf’s Clarrisa Dalloway. Though the characterization of Clarrisa Vaugham is different from Mrs. Dalloway, the similarity in the first names does cause some ripples. But the names of other characters are not the same. For instance, in Mrs. Dalloway Clarrisa’s husband is Richard but Clarrisa Vaugham’s husband is not Richard. Sally is an important character who appears in both the fictions. While her relationship with Woolf’s Clarrisa is latent, Cunningham’s Clarrisa maintains a long-term lesbian relationship with Sally. Critics argue that Virginia Woolf is inclined towards homosexuality and therefore her Clarissa Dalloway expresses her secret homosexual interest in the novel. Further Cunningham himself being a gay writer, has penned down his own experiences in the world through Clarrisa Vaugham’s lesbian relationship with Sally. Virginia’s society treated homosexuality as unnatural and perverted and therefore she did not write about it overtly. Loneliness is common to both Clarrisas. When Clarrisa Vaugham is invited for the party which her husband attends, she is utterly frustrated and states, â€Å"I am trivial, endlessly trivial† (94). Similarly, Clarrisa Dalloway is depressed when she comes to know that Lady Bruton has not extended an invitation to her. Both these women represent the triviality of life. Both these women play the role of hostess to perfection and are interested in throwing parties that Peter Walsh remarks that Clarrisa is capable of only hosting parties and taking care of the household chores. Their lives are not essentially significant but they continue to live in the society. Clarrisa Dalloway and Clarrisa Vaugham are fascinated towards the ordinariness of everyday life. Cunningham’s Clarrisa does not have the quest to achieve lofty goals in life. She â€Å"simply enjoys without reason the houses, the church, the man and the dog. It’s childish, she knows. It lacks edge† (12). Both Clarrisas are mature enough to understand that both ordinary and extraordinary are part of the world and have developed a fondness of an ordinary day in life. Clarrisas not only live with triviality and ordinariness but also with dissatisfaction towards life in general. The hollowness of human life and the masks worn by people to retain their false identity in the society is reflected through both the women characters and it is considered as a failure when the incidents around them do not take place as per heir plan and schedule. While Clarrisa emphasizes on winning the literary prize, none is bothered to listen to her. But she treats it as a precious possession which should be well-guarded and does not take into account of how the rest of the world views it. But in spite of the dissatisfactions and failures, they continue to live with a hope and cherish the same hope throughout their life as they believe that such dissatisfactions and darkness reflect the true inner joy of life and society as a whole. The attitude of both the Clarrisas towards fame is almost similar. Clarrisa Vaugham during her shopping at the florists, she wishes to guess the celebrity and with a child-like enthusiasm she waits for her appearance as she believes that movie actors represent eternity. Cunningham states, â€Å"Clarrisa stands guiltily, holding her flowers, hoping the star will show herself again, embarrassed by her own interest† (50). Clarrisa Dalloway is also inquisitive about the celebrity and by seeing the car she guesses the name of the actor. The communication between the characters is essentially strong in Cunningham’s fiction. The characters for instance could discuss about homosexuality openly while some degree of discretion and secrecy has been maintained in Woolf’s version. Clarrisa and Sally for instance are â€Å"always generous with kisses† (89) though they do not express their love verbally. Sally sends Clarrisa roses to expresses her love similar to Richard who also is not able to express his love verbally. Clarrisa Vaugham also fails to express her love for her daughter Julia and is scared that she might lose her to someone. Similarly Mrs. Clarrisa Dalloway is also afraid that she might lose her daughter and that insecurity turns into hatred towards Miss Kilman, the tutor of Julia. In Virginia Woolf’s novel, Elizabeth, daughter of Clarrisa Dalloway loathes the easy way of living of her mother and attaches herself with the feminist Doris Kilman. On the other hand, Julia, Clarrisa Vaugham’s daughter is in love with a New York lesbian by the name Mary Krull who is much older to her. Since Miss Kilman and Ms. Mary Krull are non-conformists who challenge the restrictions imposed upon them by the society, both Clarrisa treat them as adversaries. On the whole, the niceties of Clarrisa Dalloway’s Bloomsbury style are completely out of way and Clarrisa Vaugham adopts the rigorous New York way of living. Cunningham’s Clarrisa is fiercely independent and looks into the future than the past. Happer states that Woolf’s Clarrisa â€Å"looks for the meaning of life primarily in the past† (112-113). Clarrisa Vaugham has no dominant male in her life and in a way, it is remarked that the Cunningham has successfully helped Clarrisa to evolve and overcome the oppression that Woolf’s Clarrisa suffered from. Woolf has primarily focused on Mrs. Dalloway’s life. But Cunningham has extended the boundary and expressed the fact that love and hope are common to everyone in the society. To conclude the two women characters Woolf’s Clarrisa Dalloway and Cunningham’s Clarrisa Vaugham exercise a number of similarities as well as differences. Cunningham’s Clarrisa is seen as an evolution of Woolf’s Clarrisa as she not only has imbibed the qualities of Mrs. Dalloway but also enriched the same and is appreciated for the fierce independence along with love and compassion for others. Works Cited: Cunningham, Michael. The Hours. London: Fourth Estate, 1999. Print. Happer, Howard. â€Å"Mrs. Dalloway. † Between Language and Silence: The Novels of Virginia Woolf. Louisiana State: Baton Rouge, 1982. Print. Young, Tory. Michael Cunningham’s The Hours: A Reader’s Guide. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003. Print.

According to Maslow’s hierarchy Essay

1. According to Maslow’s hierarchy, which basic needs does the Patagonia culture meet? What would it be like to work at Patagonia? (Hint: Go to Patagonia’s website and find the section on jobs.) What’s your assessment of the company’s work environment? (20 points) Maslow’s hierarchy consists of five basic needs, self-actualization, esteem, social, safety, and physiological. Patagonia culture meets many standards promising that their products are produced under safe, fair, legal, and humane working conditions throughout the supply chain (Patagonia, 2014). Patagonia offers all of the needs of Maslow’s theory, making employees comfortable at their job; This Company cares about their employees offering childcare, organic meals, recreational activities, and more. Working at Patagonia would be a great place, where the company encourages celebrations and activities to boost the employee’s moral. Patagonia is known for having loyal employees b ecause of how the managers treat them having communication deadlines, expectations, and including employees in figuring out the best way to meet needs. I believe that this work environment is successful because of how it is managed and the way the employees are treated. 2. Use the expectancy theory and/or the equity theory of motivation to explain how feeling underpaid might affect the work of a Patagonia associate and what a manager can do to increase the employee’s motivation. (20 points) Expectancy theory states that a person’s behavior is influenced by the expected outcomes. In this case, low pay would lead the person to feel like no matter what they did, their efforts would not be rewarded with expected pay raises or bonuses. The employees that are underpaid often just show up and do what they have to do, nothing more because they feel their efforts are not appreciated or in some cases known. To increase motivation, acknowledging a job well done, special efforts, or anything the employee tries and does should be part of the routine. Also, making pay comparable to work, offering bonuses or rewards would also help motivation. 3. What do you think might be Patagonia’s biggest challenge in keeping employees motivated? If you were managing a team of Patagonia employees in the retail stores, how would you keep them motivated? (20 points) I believe Patagonia’s biggest challenge in keeping employees motivated is the pay. Pay is one of the biggest motiv ations for employees especially a competitive pay. Employees need to be acknowledged and feel like they are a part of a team. If I were managing Patagonia, IÂ  would have quarterly bonuses for employees that exceed expectations, coming to work on time, going above and beyond for the business. I would also do an employee of the month, with rewards that could help motivate my employees. It is important to keep your employees engaged and informed when running a business. I would include my employees on decisions that need to be made, having my employees involved because they are the ones that work with the merchandise and customers. I want to treat my employees fairly making them comfortable working for me. References Working With Factories. (2014, January 1). Retrieved October 12, 2014, from http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=67583

Teaching at Private versus Public Schools

Teaching at Private versus Public Schools Teaching jobs fall in both the public and private sectors. Deciding where to concentrate a job search raises questions for a lot of new teachers. Though similarities exist between public and private schools, several factors affect the overall teaching experience and deserve your consideration before you accept a position. Student Base in a  Private vs. Public School The law requires public schools to admit all students, without discrimination. Taxes fund public schools, but different districts receive different levels of funding, affecting the available resources in a classroom, among other things. Private schools charge tuition and typically use a selective admissions process. The price of attendance often becomes a factor in determining the socio-economic makeup of the student body, although some private schools offer scholarships to students with demonstrated financial need. Because of limited funds and a lack of mandates, teachers encounter fewer special needs students in private schools than in public schools, so if you specialized in special education, you might not find many available positions in the private sector. Government Oversight and Curriculum The government wields less power over the day-to-day administration of private schools since they do not receive tax dollars. In public schools, state mandates largely determine the subjects offered; private schools maintain much greater leeway in the curriculum standards they use. Further, public schools must use state-mandated standardized tests to measure learning while private schools can choose to use these or their own tests. Some private schools provide religious instruction along with academics and may be closely aligned with a church, synagogue, mosque or other religious institution. While public schools can teach students about religion in a civic or historical context, its against the law for public school educators to teach the tenets of any one religion. Teacher Education Public schools require  certain credentials for teachers including certification and specific degrees. Private schools have much greater leeway. Therefore, teachers in private schools may not have certifications or specific degrees to teach in their subject areas. Class Size and Student Discipline States try to keep class size down, but overcrowded schools  and a lack of teachers and funding make it difficult in many districts. Private schools often promote their small class sizes as an advantage over public schools. Further, because of a greater amount of parental involvement and more leeway when dealing with classroom discipline, private schools teachers find it easier to remove disruptive students from classes and the school itself. It takes a pretty serious offense to get a student permanently removed from the public school system. Pay A private school teacher can find many pros and cons, but pay may be the biggest negative.   Private school teachers  generally earn less than their public school counterparts, with teachers at parochial schools at the lowest end of the salary range.  Teacher salaries  at private schools come  out of student tuition. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, private school teachers on average earn $10,000 – $15,000 less than a comparable public school teacher.