Thinking in Education Essay Example for Free

Thinking in Education Essay No one doubts, theoretically, the importance of fostering in school good habits of thinking. But apart from the fact that the acknowledgment is not so great in practice as in theory, there is not adequate theoretical recognition that all which the school can or need do for pupils, so far as their minds are concerned (that is, leaving out certain specialized muscular abilities), is to develop their ability to think. The parceling out of instruction among various ends such as acquisition of skill (in reading, spelling, writing, drawing, reciting); acquiring information (in history and geography), and training of thinking is a measure of the ineffective way in which we accomplish all three. Thinking which is not connected with increase of efficiency in action, and with learning more about ourselves and the world in which we live, has something the matter with it just as thought (See ante, p. 147). And skill obtained apart from thinking is not connected with any sense of the purposes for which it is to be used. It consequently leaves a man at the mercy of his routine habits and of the authoritative control of others, who know what they are about and who are not especially scrupulous as to their means of achievement. And information severed from thoughtful action is dead, a mind-crushing load. Since it simulates knowledge and thereby develops the poison of conceit, it is a most powerful obstacle to further growth in the grace of intelligence. The sole direct path to enduring improvement in the methods of instruction and learning consists in centering upon the conditions which exact, promote, and test thinking. Thinking is the method of intelligent learning, of learning that employs and rewards mind. We speak, legitimately enough, about the method of thinking, but the important thing to bear in mind about method is that thinking is method, the method of intelligent experience in the course which it takes. I. The initial stage of that developing experience which is called thinking is experience. This remark may sound like a silly truism. It ought to be one; but unfortunately it is not. On the contrary, thinking is often regarded both in philosophic theory and in educational practice as something cut off from experience, and capable of being cultivated in isolation. In fact, the inherent limitations of experience are often urged as the sufficient ground for attention to thinking. Experience is then thought to be confined to the senses and appetites; to a mere material world, while thinking proceeds from a higher faculty (of reason), and is occupied with spiritual or at least literary things. So, oftentimes, a sharp distinction is made between pure mathematics as a peculiarly fit subject matter of thought (since it has nothing to do with physical existences) and applied mathematics, which has utilitarian but not mental value. Speaking generally, the fundamental fallacy in methods of instruction lies in supposing that experience on the part of pupils may be assumed. What is here insisted upon is the necessity of an actual empirical situation as the initiating phase of thought. Experience is here taken as previously defined: trying to do something and having the thing perceptibly do something to one in return. The fallacy consists in supposing that we can begin with ready-made subject matter of arithmetic, or geography, or whatever, irrespective of some direct personal experience of a situation. Even the kindergarten and Montessori techniques are so anxious to get at intellectual distinctions, without waste of time, that they tend to ignore or reduce the immediate crude handling of the familiar material of experience, and to introduce pupils at once to material which expresses the intellectual distinctions which adults have made. But the first stage of contact with any new material, at whatever age of maturity, must inevitably be of the trial and error sort. An individual must actually try, in play or work, to do something with material in carrying out his own impulsive activity, and then note the interaction of his energy and that of the material employed. This is what happens when a child at first begins to build with blocks, and it is equally what happens when a scientific man in his laboratory begins to experiment with unfamiliar objects. Hence the first approach to any subject in school, if thought is to be aroused and not words acquired, should be as unscholastic as possible. To realize what an experience, or empirical situation, means, we have to call to mind the sort of situation that presents itself outside of school; the sort of occupations that interest and engage activity in ordinary life. And careful inspection of methods which are permanently successful in formal education, whether in arithmetic or learning to read, or studying geography, or learning physics or a foreign language, will reveal that they depend for their efficiency upon the fact that they go back to the type of the situation which causes reflection out of school in ordinary life. They give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, or the intentional noting of connections; learning naturally results. That the situation should be of such a nature as to arouse thinking means of course that it should suggest something to do which is not either routine or capricioussomething, in other words, presenting what is new (and hence uncertain or problematic) and yet sufficiently connected with existing habits to call out an effective response. An effective response means one which accomplishes a perceptible result, in distinction from a purely haphazard activity, where the consequences cannot be mentally connected with what is done. The most significant question which can be asked, accordingly, about any situation or experience proposed to induce learning is what quality of problem it involves. At first thought, it might seem as if usual school methods measured well up to the standard here set. The giving of problems, the putting of questions, the assigning of tasks, the magnifying of difficulties, is a large part of school work. But it is indispensable to discriminate between genuine and simulated or mock problems. The following questions may aid in making such discrimination. (a) Is there anything but a problem? Does the question naturally suggest itself within some situation or personal experience? Or is it an aloof thing, a problem only for the purposes of conveying instruction in some school topic? Is it the sort of trying that would arouse observation and engage experimentation outside of school? (b) Is it the pupils own problem, or is it the teachers or textbooks problem, made a problem for the pupil only because he cannot get the required mark or be promoted or win the teachers approval, unless he deals with it? Obviously, these two questions overlap. They are two ways of getting at the same point: Is the experience a personal thing of such a nature as inherently to stimulate and direct observation of the connections involved, and to lead to inference and its testing? Or is it imposed from without, and is the pupils problem simply to meet the external requirement? Such questions may give us pause in deciding upon the extent to which current practices are adapted to develop reflective habits. The physical equipment and arrangements of the average schoolroom are hostile to the existence of real situations of experience. What is there similar to the conditions of everyday life which will generate difficulties? Almost everything testifies to the great premium put upon listening, reading, and the reproduction of what is told and read. It is hardly possible to overstate the contrast between such conditions and the situations of active contact with things and persons in the home, on the playground, in fulfilling of ordinary responsibilities of life. Much of it is not even comparable with the questions which may arise in the mind of a boy or girl in conversing with others or in reading books outside of the school. No one has ever explained why children are so full of questions outside of the school (so that they pester grown-up persons if they get any encouragement), and the conspicuous absence of display of curiosity about the subject matter of school lessons. Reflection on this striking contrast will throw light upon the question of how far customary school conditions supply a context of experience in which problems naturally suggest themselves. No amount of improvement in the personal technique of the instructor will wholly remedy this state of things. There must be more actual material, more stuff, more appliances, and more opportunities for doing things, before the gap can be overcome. And where children are engaged in doing things and in discussing what arises in the course of their doing, it is found, even with comparatively indifferent modes of instruction, that childrens inquiries are spontaneous and numerous, and the proposals of solution advanced, varied, and ingenious. As a consequence of the absence of the materials and occupations which generate real problems, the pupils problems are not his; or, rather, they are his only as a pupil, not as a human being. Hence the lamentable waste in carrying over such expertness as is achieved in dealing with them to the affairs of life beyond the schoolroom. A pupil has a problem, but it is the problem of meeting the peculiar requirements set by the teacher. His problem becomes that of finding out what the teacher wants, what will satisfy the teacher in recitation and examination and outward deportment. Relationship to subject matter is no longer direct. The occasions and material of thought are not found in the arithmetic or the history or geography itself, but in skillfully adapting that material to the teachers requirements. The pupil studies, but unconsciously to himself the objects of his study are the conventions and standards of the school system and school authority, not the nominal studies. The thinking thus evoked is artificially one-sided at the best. At its worst, the problem of the pupil is not how to meet the requirements of school life, but how to seem to meet them or, how to come near enough to meeting them to slide along without an undue amount of friction. The type of judgment formed by these devices is not a desirable addition to character. If these statements give too highly colored a picture of usual school methods, the exaggeration may at least serve to illustrate the point: the need of active pursuits, involving the use of material to accomplish purposes, if there are to be situations which normally generate problems occasioning thoughtful inquiry. II. There must be data at command to supply the considerations required in dealing with the specific difficulty which has presented itself. Teachers following a developing method sometimes tell children to think things out for themselves as if they could spin them out of their own heads. The material of thinking is not thoughts, but actions, facts, events, and the relations of things. In other words, to think effectively one must have had, or now have, experiences which will furnish him resources for coping with the difficulty at hand. A difficulty is an indispensable stimulus to thinking, but not all difficulties call out thinking. Sometimes they overwhelm and submerge and discourage. The perplexing situation must be sufficiently like situations which have already been dealt with so that pupils will have some control of the meanings of handling it. A large part of the art of instruction lies in making the difficulty of new problems large enough to challenge thought, and small enough so that, in addition to the confusion naturally attending the novel elements, there shall be luminous familiar spots from which helpful suggestions may spring. In one sense, it is a matter of indifference by what psychological means the subject matter for reflection is provided. Memory, observation, reading, communication, are all avenues for supplying data. The relative proportion to be obtained from each is a matter of the specific features of the particular problem in hand. It is foolish to insist upon observation of objects presented to the senses if the student is so familiar with the objects that he could just as well recall the facts independently. It is possible to induce undue and crippling dependence upon sense-presentations. No one can carry around with him a museum of all the things whose properties will assist the conduct of thought. A well-trained mind is one that has a maximum of resources behind it, so to speak, and that is accustomed to go over its past experiences to see what they yield. On the other hand, a quality or relation of even a familiar object may previously have been passed over, and be just the fact that is helpful in dealing with the question. In this case direct observation is called for. The same principle applies to the use to be made of observation on one hand and of reading and telling on the other. Direct observation is naturally more vivid and vital. But it has its limitations; and in any case it is a necessary part of education that one should acquire the ability to supplement the narrowness of his immediately personal experiences by utilizing the experiences of others. Excessive reliance upon others for data (whether got from reading or listening) is to be depreciated. Most objectionable of all is the probability that others, the book or the teacher, will supply solutions ready-made, instead of giving material that the student has to adapt and apply to the question in hand for himself. There is no inconsistency in saying that in schools there is usually both too much and too little information supplied by others. The accumulation and acquisition of information for purposes of reproduction in recitation and examination is made too much of. Knowledge, in the sense of information, means the working capital, the indispensable resources, of further inquiry; of finding out, or learning, more things. Frequently it is treated as an end itself, and then the goal becomes to heap it up and display it when called for. This static, cold-storage ideal of knowledge is inimical to educative development. It not only lets occasions for thinking go unused, but it swamps thinking. No one could construct a house on ground cluttered with miscellaneous junk. Pupils who have stored their minds with all kinds of material which they have never put to intellectual uses are sure to be hampered when they try to think. They have no practice in selecting what is appropriate, and no criterion to go by; everything is on the same dead static level. On the other hand, it is quite open to question whether, if information actually functioned in experience through use in application to the students own purposes, there would not be need of more varied resources in books, pictures, and talks than are usually at command. III. The correlate in thinking of facts, data, knowledge already acquired, is suggestions, inferences, conjectured meanings, suppositions, tentative explanations:ideas, in short. Careful observation and recollection determine what is given, what is already there, and hence assured. They cannot furnish what is lacking. They define, clarify, and locate the question; they cannot supply its answer. Projection, invention, ingenuity, devising come in for that purpose. The data arouse suggestions, and only by reference to the specific data can we pass upon the appropriateness of the suggestions. But the suggestions run beyond what is, as yet, actually given in experience. They forecast possible results, things to do, not facts (things already done). Inference is always an invasion of the unknown, a leap from the known. In this sense, a thought (what a thing suggests but is not as it is presented) is creative, an incursion into the novel. It involves some inventiveness. What is suggested must, indeed, be familiar in some context; the novelty, the inventive devising, clings to the new light in which it is seen, the different use to which it is put. When Newton thought of his theory of gravitation, the creative aspect of his thought was not found in its materials. They were familiar; many of them commonplaces sun, moon, planets, weight, distance, mass, square of numbers. These were not original ideas; they were established facts. His originality lay in the use to which these familiar acquaintances were put by introduction into an unfamiliar context. The same is true of every striking scientific discovery, every great invention, every admirable artistic production. Only silly folk identify creative originality with the extraordinary and fanciful; others recognize that its measure lies in putting everyday things to uses which had not occurred to others. The operation is novel, not the materials out of which it is constructed. The educational conclusion which follows is that all thinking is original in a projection of considerations which have not been previously apprehended. The child of three who discovers what can be done with blocks, or of six who finds out what he can make by putting five cents and five cents together, is really a discoverer, even though everybody else in the world knows it. There is a genuine increment of experience; not another item mechanically added on, but enrichment by a new quality. The charm which the spontaneity of little children has for sympathetic observers is due to perception of this intellectual originality. The joy which children themselves experience is the joy of intellectual constructiveness of creativeness, if the word may be used without misunderstanding. The educational moral I am chiefly concerned to draw is not, however, that teachers would find their own work less of a grind and strain if school conditions favored learning in the sense of discovery and not in that of storing away what others pour into them; nor that it would be possible to give even children and youth the delights of personal intellectual productiveness true and important as are these things. It is that no thought, no idea, can possibly be conveyed as an idea from one person to another. When it is told, it is, to the one to whom it is told, another given fact, not an idea. The communication may stimulate the other person to realize the question for himself and to think out a like idea, or it may smother his intellectual interest and suppress his dawning effort at thought. But what he directly gets cannot be an idea. Only by wrestling with the conditions of the problem at first hand, seeking and finding his own way out, does he think. When the parent or teacher has provided the conditions which stimulate thinking and has taken a sympathetic attitude toward the activities of the learner by entering into a common or conjoint experience, all has been done which a second party can do to instigate learning. The rest lies with the one directly concerned. If he cannot devise his own solution (not of course in isolation, but in correspondence with the teacher and other pupils) and find his own way out he will not learn, not even if he can recite some correct answer with one hundred per cent accuracy. We can and do supply ready-made ideas by the thousand; we do not usually take much pains to see that the one learning engages in significant situations where his own activities generate, support, and clinch ideas that is, perceived meanings or connections. This does not mean that the teacher is to stand off and look on; the alternative to furnishing ready-made subject matter and listening to the accuracy with which it is reproduced is not quiescence, but participation, sharing, in an activity. In such shared activity, the teacher is a learner, and the learner is, without knowing it, a teacher and upon the whole, the less consciousness there is, on either side, of either giving or receiving instruction, the better. IV. Ideas, as we have seen, whether they be humble guesses or dignified theories, are anticipations of possible solutions. They are anticipations of some continuity or connection of an activity and a consequence which has not as yet shown itself. They are therefore tested by the operation of acting upon them. They are to guide and organize further observations, recollections, and experiments. They are intermediate in learning, not final. All educational reformers, as we have had occasion to remark, are given to attacking the passivity of traditional education. They have opposed pouring in from without, and absorbing like a sponge; they have attacked drilling in material as into hard and resisting rock. But it is not easy to secure conditions which will make the getting of an idea identical with having an experience which widens and makes more precise our contact with the environment. Activity, even self-activity, is too easily thought of as something merely mental, cooped up within the head, or finding expression only through the vocal organs. While the need of application of ideas gained in study is acknowledged by all the more successful methods of instruction, the exercises in application are sometimes treated as devices for fixing what has already been learned and for getting greater practical skill in its manipulation. These results are genuine and not to be despised. But practice in applying what has been gained in study ought primarily to have an intellectual quality. As we have already seen, thoughts just as thoughts are incomplete. At best they are tentative; they are suggestions, indications. They are standpoints and methods for dealing with situations of experience. Till they are applied in these situations they lack full point and reality. Only application tests them, and only testing confers full meaning and a sense of their reality. Short of use made of them, they tend to segregate into a peculiar world of their own. It may be seriously questioned whether the philosophies (to which reference has been made in section 2 of chapter X) which isolate mind and set it over against the world did not have their origin in the fact that the reflective or theoretical class of men elaborated a large stock of ideas which social conditions did not allow them to act upon and test. Consequently men were thrown back into their own thoughts as ends in themselves. However this may be, there can be no doubt that a peculiar artificiality attaches to much of what is learned in schools. It can hardly be said that many students consciously think of the subject matter as unreal; but it assuredly does not possess for them the kind of reality which the subject matter of their vital experiences possesses. They learn not to expect that sort of reality of it; they become habituated to treating it as having reality for the purposes of recitations, lessons, and examinations. That it should remain inert for the experiences of daily life is more or less a matter of course. The bad effects are twofold. Ordinary experience does not receive the enrichment which it should; it is not fertilized by school learning. And the attitudes which spring from getting used to and accepting half-understood and ill-digested material weaken vigor and efficiency of thought. If we have dwelt especially on the negative side, it is for the sake of suggesting positive measures adapted to the effectual development of thought. Where schools are equipped with laboratories, shops, and gardens, where dramatizations, plays, and games are freely used, opportunities exist for reproducing situations of life, and for acquiring and applying information and ideas in the carrying forward of progressive experiences. Ideas are not segregated, they do not form an isolated island. They animate and enrich the ordinary course of life. Information is vitalized by its function; by the place it occupies in direction of action. The phrase opportunities exist is used purposely. They may not be taken advantage of; it is possible to employ manual and constructive activities in a physical way, as means of getting just bodily skill; or they may be used almost exclusively for utilitarian, i.e., pecuniary, ends. But the disposition on the part of upholders of cultural education to assume that such activities are merely physical or professional in quality, is itself a product of the philosophies which isolate mind from direction of the course of experience and hence from action upon and with things. When the mental is regarded as a self-contained separate realm, a counterpart fate befalls bodily activity and movements. They are regarded as at the best mere external annexes to mind. They may be necessary for the satisfaction of bodily needs and the attainment of external decency and comfort, but they do not occupy a necessary place in mind nor enact an indispensable role in the completion of thought. Hence they have no place in a liberal educationi.e., one which is concerned with the interests of intelligence. If they come in at all, it is as a concession to the material needs of the masses. That they should be allowed to invade the education of the elite is unspeakable. This conclusion follows irresistibly from the isolated conception of mind, but by the same logic it disappears when we perceive what mind really is namely, the purposive and directive factor in the development of experience. While it is desirable that all educational institutions should be equipped so as to give students an opportunity for acquiring and testing ideas and information in active pursuits typifying important social situations, it will, doubtless, be a long time before all of them are thus furnished. But this state of affairs does not afford instructors an excuse for folding their hands and persisting in methods which segregate school knowledge. Every recitation in every subject gives an opportunity for establishing cross connections between the subject matter of the lesson and the wider and more direct experiences of everyday life. Classroom instruction falls into three kinds. The least desirable treats each lesson as an independent whole. It does not put upon the student the responsibility of finding points of contact between it and other lessons in the same subject, or other subjects of study. Wiser teachers see to it that the student is systematically led to utilize his earlier lessons to help understand the present one, and also to use the present to throw additional light upon what has already been acquired. Results are better, but school subject matter is still isolated. Save by accident, out-of-school experience is left in its crude and comparatively irreflective state. It is not subject to the refining and expanding influences of the more accurate and comprehensive material of direct instruction. The latter is not motivated and impregnated with a sense of reality by being intermingled with the realities of everyday life. The best type of teaching bears in mind the desirability of affecting this interconnection. It puts the student in the habitual attitude of finding points of contact and mutual bearings. Â  Summary Processes of instruction are unified in the degree in which they center in the production of good habits of thinking. While we may speak, without error, of the method of thought, the important thing is that thinking is the method of an educative experience. The essentials of method are therefore identical with the essentials of reflection. They are first that the pupil have a genuine situation of experience that there be a continuous activity in which he is interested for its own sake; secondly, that a genuine problem develop within this situation as a stimulus to thought; third, that he possess the information and make the observations needed to deal with it; fourth, that suggested solutions occur to him which he shall be responsible for developing in an orderly way; fifth, that he have opportunity and occasion to test his ideas by application, to make their meaning clear and to discover for himself their validity.

The Controversial Theme of A Dolls House by Henrik Ibsen Essay

The Controversial Theme of A Doll's House      Ã‚  Ã‚  In his play, A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen depicts a female protagonist, Nora Helmer, who dares to defy her husband and forsake her "duty" as a wife and mother to seek out her individuality. A Doll's House challenges the patriarchal view held by most people at the time that a woman's place was in the home. Many women could relate to Nora's situation. Like Nora, they felt trapped by their husbands and their fathers; however, they believed that the rules of society prevented them from stepping out of the shadows of men. Through this play, Ibsen stresses the importance of women's individuality. A Doll's House combines realistic characters, fascinating imagery, explicit stage directions, and an influential setting to develop a controversial theme. The characters of this play help to support Ibsen's opinions. Nora's initial characteristics are that of a bubbly, child-like wife who is strictly dependent on her husband. This subordinate role from which Nora progresses emphasizes the need for change in society's view of women. For Nora, her inferior, doll-like nature is a facade for a deeper passion for individuality that begins to surface during the play and eventually fully emerges in the ending. An example of this deep yearning for independence is shown when Nora tells her friend, Kristina Linde about earning her own money by doing copying. Nora explains, "it was tremendous fun sitting [in her room] working and earning money. It was almost like being a man" (A Doll's House, 162). Mrs. Linde is an inspiration to Nora, because Kristina has experienced the independence that Nora longs for. Even though Nora seeks to be independent, she uses her role of subordination to her advant... ...ntroversial theme. Ibsen expresses to the audience his hope for the "miracle" of true equality, when neither men nor women abuse the power that society gives them. When Nora sheds her doll's dress and steps out into the real world, she opens up a new realm of possibilities for all women. Works Cited and Consulted: Agress, Lynne. The Feminine Irony: Women on Women in Early-Nineteenth-Century English Literature. London: Associated UP, 1978. Durbach, Errol. A Doll's House: Ibsen's Myth of Transformation. Boston: Twayne, 1991. Ibsen, Henrik. A League of Youth/ A Doll's House/ The Lady From the Sea. Trans. Peter Watts. England: Clays Ltd., 1965. Salomà ©, Lou. Ibsen's Heroines. Ed. and trans. Siegfried Mandel. Redding Ridge: Black Swan, 1985. Templeton, Joan. "The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen." PMLA (January 1989): 28-40.    The Controversial Theme of A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen Essay The Controversial Theme of A Doll's House      Ã‚  Ã‚  In his play, A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen depicts a female protagonist, Nora Helmer, who dares to defy her husband and forsake her "duty" as a wife and mother to seek out her individuality. A Doll's House challenges the patriarchal view held by most people at the time that a woman's place was in the home. Many women could relate to Nora's situation. Like Nora, they felt trapped by their husbands and their fathers; however, they believed that the rules of society prevented them from stepping out of the shadows of men. Through this play, Ibsen stresses the importance of women's individuality. A Doll's House combines realistic characters, fascinating imagery, explicit stage directions, and an influential setting to develop a controversial theme. The characters of this play help to support Ibsen's opinions. Nora's initial characteristics are that of a bubbly, child-like wife who is strictly dependent on her husband. This subordinate role from which Nora progresses emphasizes the need for change in society's view of women. For Nora, her inferior, doll-like nature is a facade for a deeper passion for individuality that begins to surface during the play and eventually fully emerges in the ending. An example of this deep yearning for independence is shown when Nora tells her friend, Kristina Linde about earning her own money by doing copying. Nora explains, "it was tremendous fun sitting [in her room] working and earning money. It was almost like being a man" (A Doll's House, 162). Mrs. Linde is an inspiration to Nora, because Kristina has experienced the independence that Nora longs for. Even though Nora seeks to be independent, she uses her role of subordination to her advant... ...ntroversial theme. Ibsen expresses to the audience his hope for the "miracle" of true equality, when neither men nor women abuse the power that society gives them. When Nora sheds her doll's dress and steps out into the real world, she opens up a new realm of possibilities for all women. Works Cited and Consulted: Agress, Lynne. The Feminine Irony: Women on Women in Early-Nineteenth-Century English Literature. London: Associated UP, 1978. Durbach, Errol. A Doll's House: Ibsen's Myth of Transformation. Boston: Twayne, 1991. Ibsen, Henrik. A League of Youth/ A Doll's House/ The Lady From the Sea. Trans. Peter Watts. England: Clays Ltd., 1965. Salomà ©, Lou. Ibsen's Heroines. Ed. and trans. Siegfried Mandel. Redding Ridge: Black Swan, 1985. Templeton, Joan. "The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen." PMLA (January 1989): 28-40.   

Inside the mind of a savant Essay

Treffert and Christensen’s article (2005), touches on the important and curious issue: the differences among humans. It is not to hide that jealous and curious species desire to possess what others possess and desire to know how it is possible. The description of savant individual, Kim Peek, leaves the readers wonder about the possibilities that have a mere possibility and right to existence. These authors begin their article with a concrete description of what does it mean to be savant. Their description is well poised and not an eggeduration. They, straightforwardly, describe the concrete features that Kim had without forgetting to mention that Kim also has serious physical disabilities. Kim’s listed abilities are though impressive. I do not know a person who would think twice to have what Kim had – but knot with the price that Kim had to pay. Enduring difficult attitude from others or enduring physical differences are quite different things. Kim endured physical differences that simply made him more different. Now, when he is a grown man (and way into his 50th), researchers took a serious interest in him due to the uniqueness of his case. The authors mentioned in the article that, even in childhood, Kim was missing Corpus Colossum, the connecting neural network that connects left and right human hemispheres. The writers write, â€Å"Yet in people whose corpus callosum has been severed in adulthood, generally in an effort to prevent epileptic seizures from spreading from one hemisphere to the other, a characteristic â€Å"split-brain† syndrome arises in which the estranged hemispheres begin to work almost independently of each other. † This statement, by itself, points out at the materialistic approach that without the synaptic connections between the right and left hemisphere the connection between right and left hemisphere is impossible. There were some ‘guesses’ among the appropriate researchers but no one wanted to mention a possibility that that here is a hidden purpose behind such appearances. The authors conjecture lies within a science fiction, however plausible. They wrote that the person born without corpus collossum learn to connect right and left hemisphere with the non-traditional ways. Their hypothesis consists of an idea that two separated hemispheres learn to act as one, in unison. One major point that the authors noticed was that the ‘abnormalities’ stem form the damage in the left hemisphere only. Furthermore, the suggested that males, per ce, display more frequent number of cases of savanism, stuttering, dyslexia, and autism. Their response to this theory was straightforward: one possible explanation lies within the fetus development in which they suggest that the make fetus has higher levels chemically dependent and left-brained situation. In to this hypothesis the understanding that the left hemisphere develops with a slower rate than that of right has a big part of their study. To evidence the above, the authors use the examples of so called â€Å"acquired savant syndrome† which is resulted in older children after the accidental damage to the left hemisphere. Further, the article speculates upon the implication of the significance behind the corpus collossum. One possibility includes a rationale, which suggests that, the possibility of the right brain compensation if the left-brain cannot function properly. Another possibility makes the readers think that inability to function within one hemisphere unravels the latent ability in another. The latter theory suggests that the left-brain dominance is due to the fact that we live in the techno logical society that prizes the left-brain achievements. Thus, the function of the left-brain, which is prone to science, math, and logic, leads us to what we call Human Rational, the human species that uses conscious analogies in their day-to-day operations (Read, 1997). The dysfunction of the left hemisphere all of the sudden opens new possibilities hidden and latent within the right hemisphere that holds the key to what we call today Human Conscious. It is of interest to the readers that traditional intelligence tests did not really work with the above subject: some parts showed below average while other superior range performance. In another excursion into the case, the authors noted Kim’s unusual versatility with a tremendously large lexicon of vocabulary in his possession. With Kim’s inability to explain the meaning behind the proverbs he finds amazing associations and is being quite effective in long-term memory recall. Such has been evidenced by his unusual abilities dealt with music, as per complex line up of tones and musical styles as well as the names and works of various artists. Here, and despite his dexterous prior complications, he can seat at piano and play a piece he had discussed â€Å"shifting effortlessly from one mode to another. † Even Greehan, the Mozart scholar commented positively about Kim’s abilities. In summary, the authors, refer to the fictional Rain Man produced after Kim’s life story, although the the writer Barry Morrow decided not to outline Kim’s life story. Similarities are striking, however, and cause one is thinking about not-discovered human abilities. References Darold A. Treffert and Daniel D. Christensen (2005). Onside the mind of a savant. Scientific American. Retrieved July 22, 2007 from http://www. condition. org/sa5c. htm Read, S. G. (Ed. ). (1997). Psychiatry in Learning Disability. Edinburgh: W. B. Saunders. Retrieved July 24, 2007, from Questia database: http://www. questia. com/PM. qst? a=o&d=100737215.

Marketing Strategy - 784 Words

5. Marketing means solving problems of how best to meet customer needs. What were the mistakes Afjuz made in its former approach to marketing? What marketing strategy should Afjuz adopt to improve its performance on the British market? Give your reasons. Marketing is a mix of activities involved in getting goods from the producer to the consumer. The producer is responsible for the design and manufacture of goods. Early marketing techniques followed production and were responsible only for moving goods from the manufacturer to the point of final sale. Now, however, marketing is much more pervasive. In large corporations the marketing functions precede the manufacture of a product. They involve market research and product development,†¦show more content†¦As it turned out after 2,5 years all the attempts of the agency to boost sales, to enlarge a market share and heighten the popularity of the brand failed. They managed to rich just 0,8% share of the market (in contrast to predicted 3% within 3 years period) serving  £0,5 mln of the market sales (for comparison the total market worth is estimated about  £50 mln). Preparing the expansion for the British market Marketing Board made a number of mistakes. The first and may be even the most serious false step was that they had not carried a thorough and all-round research and analysis of the received data. In order to realize and implement an efficient marketing strategy it is necessary to observe marketing management principles which include: planning, organizing, directing, and controlling decision making. Oranges consider to be problem products in the view of distribution and sells – it is very difficult for the producer to inform potential customers of some unique features and difference from the competitors’ fruits. Moreover it is an extremely complicated task for the customer to identify and distinguish oranges of the concrete grower. Another and very important fact is that the world citrus-fruit market is shared among a group of large and well-organized producers who unwillingly agree to affiliate a new player. Marketing Board also did not take into consideration the popularityShow MoreRelatedCorporate Responsibility and Marketing Strategies1838 Words   |  8 Pagesï » ¿ Corporate Responsibility and Marketing Strategies Wanda Joyce McGhee Dr. Malinda Swigart Business 508 July 13, 2014 Corporate Responsibility and Marketing Strategies There is no question that Apple is a remarkable company. In addition to its business turnaround, its innovative design, and its media content and apps, the unadulterated  sexiness of all its products makes Apple hard to resist. For me, what isn’t hard to resist, is asking: How can a company that is this extraordinaryRead MoreThe Marketing Strategy Of Walmart1496 Words   |  6 Pagesrecognition by consumers escalate to never before seen heights. Because of this brand recognition, it has become important for businesses to design their websites to reflect their overall marketing strategies. This is especially important in the retail world. All retail businesses have a similar overall marketing strategy of generating sales and retaining the customer for future sales. Most of the retail giants still greatly rely on the success of their brick and mortar stores to turn a profit. HoweverRead MoreDells Marketing Strategy1802 Words   |  8 Pagesalways been careful in sustaining i ts marketing strategy of providing standard-based computing solutions (Official Website 2004). Today Dell is the third largest computer manufacturer in the world. On January 2004 Dell reports net revenue approximately $41,444 millions and 46000 employees (Annual report 2004). Marketing Environment Dells strategy is global. It realizes that being closer to the customers is essential in carrying out its marketing strategies as well as in enabling it to build customerRead MoreMarketing Strategy1138 Words   |  5 PagesChapter 1 Marketing in Today’s Economy Exercise 1.1 CarsDirect http://www.carsdirect.com 1. Explore the CarsDirect website, including pricing a vehicle of your choice. How successful is CarsDirect in reducing the hassles associated with buying an automobile? 2. Does the design of the CarsDirect website convey confidence and trust in the car buying process? How has CarsDirect answered consumers’ concerns over the lack of a human element in their marketspace? Exercise 1.2 DaytonaRead MoreMarketing Strategies For A Marketing Strategy1235 Words   |  5 PagesMarketing strategies A marketing strategy is a description of goals that need to be achieved with marketing efforts. A marketing strategy is normally formed by an organizations business goals. Business goals and a marketing strategy should go hand-in-hand. A marketing strategy should consist of a clear goal of what has to be done, informing consumers about the product or services being offered, and also informing consumer of differentiation factors. The 4 P’s of marketing Marketing is a businessRead MoreMarketing Strategies For The Marketing Strategy1453 Words   |  6 Pagestrue cost of production for the particular products and services are not known to the customers. Instead, they feel the worth of a product from their sense of feeling and decide to buy it even on higher price. Therefore producers chase such marketing strategies which help them to set huge perceived value for their product or service and in this way they are able to get high prices for their products in the market (Sweeney et al., 1999). Perceived value is mostly used by companies who manufactureRead MoreMarketing Strategies For A Marketing Strategy1177 Words   |  5 Pagescompanies in marketing has become more intense. Practice effective marketing strategies is very important for most of the companies who want to be successful and to become leaders in marketing. Strategy is part of marketing techniques that combine all the market goals which are the company needs to make a completed plan in order to increase sales and maintain customers (Bennie, 2016). Marketing strategies have been extensively studied in the marketing area. For example, marketing strategy was discussedRead MoreMarketing Strategies Of The Marketing Strategy Essay1527 Words   |  7 PagesThe Marketing Strategies that were exercised by eBay which contributed to its success. 1. Definition of the Marketing Strategy Grewal and Levy (2010: p.32) states that â€Å"a marketing strategy identifies a firm’s target market(s), a related marketing mix - their four P’s and the bases upon which the firm plans to build a sustainable competitive advantage†. Kotler and Keller (2012: p.274) further argues that ‘the marketing strategy is built on segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) and a companyRead MoreMarketing Plan For A Marketing Strategy909 Words   |  4 PagesA marketing plan is crucial to the survival of an organization. Marketing plans need to be well thought out and target a certain market. The market that an organization chooses will demonstrate what direction they want the organization to head in. However, choosing just one market will be problematic to the organization because they will be missing out on other opportunities to grow. The organization needs to operate like the old sane, kill two birds with one stone. Therefore, if an organizationRead MoreMarketing Strategy : Marketing Strategies871 Words   |  4 PagesPurpose and Overview The purpose of this case analysis report for Mistine, direct selling in Thailand Cosmetic Market looks into the marketing strategies focus. The report includes external opportunities and threats as well as strengths that are to be discussed here. The external opportunities include new markets and new product and service development. External threats include growing competition and lower profitability external business risks. The weakness are high prices are possible