Virginia Woolf Essays - Bloomsbury Group, Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf "Virginia Woolf - A Life of Struggle and Affliction" The literary critic Queenie Leavis, who had been born into the British lower middle class and reared three children while writing and editing and teaching, thought Virginia Woolf a preposterous representative of real women's lives: "There is no reason to suppose Mrs. Woolf would know which end of the cradle to stir." Yet no one was more aware of the price of unworldliness than Virginia Woolf. Her imaginative voyages into the waveringly lighted depths of "Mrs. Dalloway" and "To the Lighthouse" were partly owed to a freedom from the literal daily need of voyaging out - to the shop or the office or even the nursery. Her husband, Leonard Woolf, believed that without the aid of her inheritance his wife would probably not have written a novel at all. For money guaranteed not just time but intellectual liberty. "I'm the only woman in England free to write what I like," she exulted in her diary in 1925, after the publication of "Mrs. Dalloway" by the Hogarth Press, which she and Leonard had set up to free her from the demands of publishers and editors. What she liked to write turned out to be, of course, books that gave voice to much that had gone unheard in the previous history of writing things down: the dartings and weavings of the human mind in the fleet elaborations of thought itself (Malcomi, 4). "Mrs. Dalloway" is a finespun tribute to the complexities of social interaction on a single day in London in 1923, ending with a shallow society hostess's glittering party; it is also one of the Patton 2 written about the effects of World War I. Virginia Woolf was not without politics or fierce worldly concerns (4-5). The diaries and letters spanning both world wars are filled with bulletins arguments, terrors of distant armies and next-door bombs and the precariousness of the entire civilization of which she knew herself to be a late, probably too exquisite bloom. Her art is less direct. In her novels the resonance of great events sounds from deep within individual lives. More than any other writer, Woolf has shown us how the most far-off tragedies become a part of the way we think about our daily expectations, our friends, the colors of a park, the weather, the possibility of going on or the decision not to. The old image of Virginia Woolf the snob has largely given way to various loftier characterizations: Virginia Woolf the literary priestess, or the Queen of ever-titillating Bloomsbury, or - most influentially - the vital feminist whose requisite "room of her own" came to seem the very workshop in which such books as "The Second Sex" and "The Feminine Mystique" were later produced (Reinhart, 27). Recently, however, Woolf has been granted a too modern female pantheon: the victim. The discovered molestations of her childhood, the bouts of madness that led to her suicide, seem now to commend rather than to qualify her right to speak for women. But Woolf's personal example is in the strength and the steady professionalism that kept her constantly at work - the overambitious failures as sweated over as the lyric triumphs. For all her fragility as a woman, she was a writer of gargantuan appetite, and she knew full well how much she intended to enclose in her fine but prodigious, spreading, unbreakable webs. "Happier today than I was yesterday," she wrote in her diary in January 1920, "having this afternoon arrived at some idea of new form for a new novel (Reinhart, 36). Suppose one thing of another ... only not for 10 pages but for 200 or so - doesn't that give the looseness and Patton 3 lightness I want; doesn't that get closer and yet keep form and speed, and enclose everything, everything?" She not only said that she was depressed, but that she was going 'mad' again, and beginning to hear voices. She could not concentrate, and believed she could not read or write. She was hopeless and self-critical, and to the end maintained that her suicide was justified and that she would not recover. Her suicide was planned and determined, and despite a possible failed attempt a week earlier cannot be seen as an impulsive gesture that went wrong. When she wrote at the end of her life that she was going mad 'again', she spoke the truth and from lengthy experience. She had her first breakdown at the age of thirteen, and others when she was twenty-two, twenty-eight, and

Cooperation versus Competition Approach in Learning and Evaluation of Student Achievement

Cooperation versus Competition Approach in Learning and Evaluation of Student Achievement Introduction Within the last few decades, the general nature of strategies used in learning and evaluation of students’ progress in American schools has dramatically changed to coincide with changing educational needs and rapid advances in technology.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Cooperation versus Competition Approach in Learning and Evaluation of Student Achievement specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Consecutive studies have revealed that performance of students in educational tasks is affected by a multiplicity of influences that includes the social economic status, language barriers, school experiences, ethnic orientation and learning styles. To date, the established explanatory models of educational performance have remained centered on internal characteristics to explain academic achievement, including unconstructive self concept, unproductive cultural attitudes and values towards education, bi lingualism, low intelligence capacity, and apathy (Madrid et al, 2007, p. 155). However, many educators are of the opinion that these explanations are not supported by available literature. In this respective, a significant debate interested in looking at how students can be assisted to achieve more optimally in class has been in the offing. It is the purpose of this paper to detail and compare cooperation and competition approaches in relation to learning and evaluation of student achievement. Competition, Cooperation and Human Nature Many of the challenges that plague education in the 21st century can be better comprehended when viewed within the context of competition-corporation framework. Before getting into educational matters, it is imperative to note how the two concepts influence human nature. It is indeed true that many of the greatest accomplishments made by Americans as a society can only be credited to their strong and passionate competitiveness. This view can greatly b e supported by the US enterprise system that instills competitive views into the human nature. According to Astin (2000), â€Å"individuals [should be] given the maximum opportunity to compete with each other for the largest possible share of resources and rewards in society† (p. 182). In cooperation, human progress is viewed as a manifestation of our capacity to cooperate with each other towards the realization of some common objectives. This view holds that achievement in every faculty of life must never be perceived as a conquest in the struggle with other individuals or as a triumph of the environment (Astin, 2000, p. 183). Within cooperation activities, people work together to achieve shared outcomes that are beneficial to themselves as well as other group members (â€Å"Cooperative Learning,† n.d., para. 1).Advertising Looking for research paper on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Brief Overview of Cooperation and Competition Learning Educators and policy makers have used the concepts of cooperation and competition to understand the learning process and evaluate students’ progress or achievement. Cooperative learning is the instructional utilization of group dynamics in the learning process, which enable the learners to work together in the effort of enhancing their own benefits as well as that of other students within the group (â€Å"Cooperative Learning,† n.d., para. 1). In cooperative learning, students are organized into small groups after getting the learning materials and instructions from the teacher. Learners are then supposed to work on the given task until they comprehend it as a group, not as individuals. This concept reinforces the view that success in the learning process or achievement of students must never be perceived as a conquest in the struggle with other students. Rather, students must work hard to achieve mutual benefit by helpi ng each other in the group and learning from each other’s efforts. In other words, success must be seen to benefit all students within the group since they share a common objective, â€Å"knowing that one’s performance is mutually caused by oneself and one’s colleagues† (â€Å"Cooperative Learning,† n.d., para. 1). Competition learning exists when one learner is able to achieve his or her own objective while all the other students fail in their attempts to realize that objective (Gurien, Henley Trueman, 2001, p. 192). Competition learning can either be interpersonal or inter-group. The practice of competition learning is based on the philosophy that students must compete in a class setting for them to be competitive and be able to comprehend their learning objectives. Competition learning is a rather conservative approach towards education that seems to suggest that a student can be assisted to achieve optimally in learning through engaging in act ive competition with other students. For decades now, conservatives have been in the forefront in stressing the significance of competition among students, schools, administrative districts and states to bring out the maximum achievable performance among learners in school (Ediger, 2000, p. 1). The school voucher system and charter schools in the US are good reference points of how competition continues to be used in our educational system to ignite student performance. Competition Cooperation in Learning and Evaluation of Student Achievement Educators believe that both cooperation and competition learning can be used in tandem to achieve high performance though they seem to conflict each other. According to Gurian, Henley Trueman (2001), â€Å"brain-based research indicates that the ultimate classroom be based on both† (p. 192).Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Cooperation versus Competition Approach in Learning and Evaluation of Student A chievement specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More However, the function of this research paper is to detail and compare the concepts with the view of coming up with the best concept that can be used in learning and evaluation of student progress. Consecutive studies have revealed that cooperation learning achieves greater success than competition learning. The capacity of students to learn and comprehend the instructions passed to them by teachers is fundamentally important. In the same vein, evaluation activities direct the progress made by students towards the realization of objectives outlined by their respective teachers. Therefore, the capacity to learn and evaluation are indispensable facets of instruction at all levels. Evaluation is specifically important since it offers the mechanisms whereby the quality of classroom tasks and activities can be continually maintained and improved (Kolawole, 2008, p. 33). It is also used to establish the l evel of understanding of the tasks taught. Evaluating the performance of students is the cardinal duty of teachers. In most occasions, learning and evaluation processes are time-consuming, cumbersome and requires a highly technical expertise and proficiency on the part of teachers. Despite their enormity, these are indispensable tasks that form the core of any instructional activity. Teachers generally use several techniques to influence successful teaching and learning processes. Despite its many limitations, most educational systems globally are based upon competition among learners for marks, recognition, educational scholarships and admittance to high performing schools (Kolawole, 2008, p. 33). Consecutive studies reveal that many societies and educational frameworks around the world still favor competition over cooperation. In this type of learning approach, students are overly concerned with their individual achievements and their place in the grade curve. The emphasis is put on achieving higher grades than everyone else. Essentially, competition thrives in a win-lose relationship where high-performing learners reap all the benefits and recognition upon evaluation while low-achieving learners reap none. Traditionally, this was thought to be the best form of instruction strategy. In many educational systems, competition learning has been viewed as a stimulant to the growing brain (Gurien, Henley Trueman, 2001, p. 193).Advertising Looking for research paper on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Proponents of competition learning argue that this strategy enables students to notice achievement through comparing their performance. This assertion validates the existence of the grading system that is immediately done after evaluating the students (Ediger, 2000, p. 12). It suggests that a student who receives the last grade may notice his failures and pull up his socks. Proponents of competition learning also argue that it encourages teachers to work harder to reduce the gap in student achievement among diverse ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic levels, not mentioning the fact that this strategy is instrumental in raising the test scores of students (Ediger, 2000, p. 12). Here, competition is perceived as a motivating factor towards optimal achievement in the learning process. Advocates of this strategy assume that statewide testing and evaluation as well as local and international comparisons among schools and countries need to be made. Typical teaching paradigms comprise of individual students learning effort, differentiated by competitive evaluation to appraise student achievement and develop an evaluation hierarchy based on individual grades (Kolawole, 2007, p. 34). Voices of criticism regarding the strategy have been heard from many quarters. Educators are concerned that this strategy fails all the other students in evaluation since there is only one winner. In many countries around the world, this strategy has been related to frequent student strikes as it is directly correlated to high anxiety levels and self-doubt especially when the students are sitting for their examinations (Astin, 2000, p. 184). It is also related to selfishness and aggression among the students. Educational psychologists argue that the technique hinders the student’s capacity to solve problems not mentioning the fact that it promotes cheating. In the light of these disapprovals, it should be the prerogative of teachers to identify the types of competitive activities t hat are more likely to bring positive outcomes. Accordingly, competitive learning is most suitable when learners need to assess learned material. In cooperative learning, there exists a positive interdependence between the learning procedure and the overall attainments of goals and objectives set by both the students and teachers. The basic philosophy is that â€Å"students†¦can reach their learning goals if and only if the other students in the learning group also reach their goals† (â€Å"Cooperative Learning,† n.d., para. 1). The success of any particular project that may be used for learning or evaluation purposes is dependent on both individual contribution and the efforts of other students within the group to contribute the required knowledge, expertise and resources. Consequently, cooperation is viewed as a strategy of learning in which learners of diverse levels of ability and knowledge works jointly in small groups to achieve a specific purpose (Kolawole, 2007, p. 34). Cooperative learning involves utilizing a multiplicity of learning activities to progress the students understanding of a particular subject. Here, learners in a group cooperate with each other, share opinions and information, search for additional information, and present their findings to the entire class (Kolawole, 2007, p. 34). Cooperative learning places special emphasis on the fundamental objective of learning rather than performing to achieve the set goals. In this perspective, the technique encourages instructors to utilize alternative evaluation procedures, further curtailing the emphasis on competitive evaluations. Cooperation learning is fundamentally different from competition learning in that the latter demands students to work against each other for purposes of accomplishing an objective that only one or a few students can attain (â€Å"Cooperative Learning,† n.d., para. 2). The cooperation concept has many advantages in relation to learning and e valuation of student performance. Educators argue that this technique helps to enhance student accomplishment and retention, not mentioning the fact that it increases self-esteem and intrinsically motivate the students to develop a more positive outlook towards learning and social skills (Kolawole, 2007, p. 34). These are important achievements in the quest of transforming students to become better performers in educational and social fronts. In competition learning, there exists a negative correlation among goal accomplishments since students are made to believe that they can only achieve their objectives if and only if other students fail in the quest to achieve their objectives (â€Å"Cooperative Learning,† para. 2). This is not good for the education system as it reinforces norm-referenced and criterion-referenced assessment in the achievement of goals. In competition learning, students must either work extremely hard to claim the top positions or fail to put in the neede d efforts due to their own perception that they cannot be victorious over their counterparts. Cooperation learning is therefore superior since it brings all students along in the learning experience. In cooperation learning, the instructors have the capacity to notice within the ongoing classroom activities what the students have learned and what needs to be learned. This is successfully done without the use of standardized evaluation tests or the above mentioned criterion-referenced tests (Ediger, 2000, p. 12). Still, cooperation learning has the capacity to assist students contextually and chronologically in ongoing study lessons without necessarily having to rely on standardized evaluation tests as is the case with competition learning. It goes against the grain of focusing on self-interest and individual success that are the trademark characteristics of competition learning. What’s more, cooperation technique offers teachers the capacity to work together cooperatively in the quest to develop quality set of goals for students to accomplish. Some disadvantages have been mentioned regarding cooperation learning. Educators have stressed the need for students to be allowed to learn at their own individual speeds. Some students are also known to take over the whole group at the expense of other students, while quiet students within the group may feel uncomfortable (Middlecamp, 1997). This means that learning activities may be compromised or biased towards certain students if precautionary measures are not taken. Group dynamics suggest that individuals may not get along in a number of issues. This applies to the learning groups. Finally, some students feel that this technique lacks fairness as lazy students may take advantage of the hardworking students Conclusion According to Astin (2000),†human kind would certainly never have attained its place on the evolutionary ladder if it had not evolved through corporative as well as competitive learning† (p. 192). This statement shows the importance of both techniques in learning and evaluation of student achievement. However, educational needs as well as socio-cultural and technological changes witnessed in the modern world demands specific adjustments in our educational systems if they are to remain relevant in the 21st century. The traditional model of competition learning may have served the needs of the education systems resoundingly well during the formative years. But presently, corporation learning seems to have ready answers to a multiplicity of issues and challenges facing the education system. Educators need to filter the good outputs of competition learning and mix them with the good outputs of cooperation learning to come up with a hybrid system that will ensure the needs and requirements of education are met in the most comprehensive manner possible. Reference List Astin, A.W. (2000). Competition or corporation? Teaching teamwork as a basic skill. In: D. Dezurre (Ed s), Learning from change: Landmarks in teaching and learning in  higher education. Routledge. ISBN: 9780749433963 Cooperative Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from co-operation.org/ Ediger, M. (2000). Competition versus corporation and pupil achievement. College  Student Journal, Vol. 34, Issue 1. Gurien, M., Henley, P., Trueman, T. (2001). Boys and girls learn differently: A guide  for teachers and parents. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN: 9780787953430 Kolawole, E.B. (2007). Effects of competitive and cooperation learning strategies on academic performance of Nigerian students in mathematics. Educational Research and Review, Vol. 2, Issue 1, pp. 33-37. Web. Madrid, L.D., Canas, M., Orteha-Medina, M. (2007). Effects of team competition versus team corporation in class wide peer tutoring. Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 100, Issue 3, pp 155-160. Middlecamp, C. (1997). Students speak out on collaborative learning. Retrieved from https://wcer.wisc.edu/

Summery and your opinion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Summery and your opinion - Essay Example Economists have proposed changes in the business sector. The proposed changes are mainly targeting large businesses with the aim of transforming them into entrepreneurship. Transformation of an organization from a knowledge-based organization to an information-based organization is not achievable with only data processing. The attempt by the British to establish an information based organization in the modern India proves the idea (Drucker 45). The impacts of computer technology in business are the first evidence of the inevitable transformation of knowledge-based organizations to information-based organization. Coca-Cola Company is an example of a company that is still in the transformation process. Recently the company has automated its production plants using information system. The best way to measure the benefits of computers in business is through an analysis of technology as a capital. This implies that we need to determine expected rate of return, payout period and the investment’s expected productive life, discount present value of returns, cost of deferment risk, cost of risks resulting from failure and the opportunity cost (Drucker 46). The rate of data processing has been linked with the transformation of knowledge-based organization to information-based organization. The British experience in India however proves that advanced data processing is not adequate to create an information-based organization (Drucker 48). An organization’s capacity to process data determines its structure and this is the second effect of the transformation. Data gives information the required relevance however the process of transforming data into information depends on knowledge. The most appropriate definition of knowledge is based on specialization and therefore it is not easy to separate information from knowledge. Similar to the knowledge-based organization, an information-based organization requires specialists. In addition, there are more specialists