What you want Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

What you want - Essay Example Through this paper, I will share my life experience from my own perspective of being in a country that has a mixture foreign students and professionals from different cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds. This will be done in relation to the concepts highlighted in The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery by Don Miguel Ruiz, Don Jose Ruiz and Janet Mills. Humans are unique basing on how they were brought up, cultural background, religion, education level and a myriad of many other factors. However, we are all humans and our brothers’ keepers. I have previously been both hurt and encouraged by the words of others towards me and also hurt others by my words towards them. This has a direct bearing with the book The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery. In their first agreement, Ruiz, Ruiz and Mills (38) urge readers to be impeccable with their word. On the contrary, I have seen students from my years in schools and employees in my professional career suffer emotionally and psychologically from what a colleague said recklessly. This was mainly through stereotypes that people have against different cultures, ethnicities or even races. This remains a major problem both among individuals and societies because they do not want to seek out the truth first before openly airing their views but rather, only rely on age-old s tereotypes. While The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery teaches that people should speak with integrity and only say what they mean, the opposite is being done. I now realize that the perpetrators should have taken their time to learn more about their targets. This will contribute in mutual social cohesion and avoid hurting others. For example, I was once told in school that I was not fit to sit at a certain table in the cafeteria because of my ethnicity, yet it was the only one with space and I ended up eating standing.

Should smartphones be bsnned in classrooms Research Paper

Should smartphones be bsnned in classrooms - Research Paper Example 1). In addition, the same discourse has identified that the smartphone owners by age group revealed that 23.8% are owned by young people, specifically within the 13 to 24 years range (Alexander, 2012), or those who are considered within the school-age bracket. In this regard, the current study aims to determine the effects of smartphone use in academic performance. Despite the academic benefits that have been published associated with smartphone use; apparently, there are more costs or disadvantages linked to its usage within the classroom setting. As such, one argues that smartphones should be banned in classrooms due to the greater disadvantages associated to its use and its negative impact on academic performance. Impact of Smartphone Use in the Classroom Setting One of the more prominent reasons for arguing that smartphones should be banned is its being used to promote maladjusted behavior, including cheating and posting inappropriate information about teachers (Gutnicki, 2010; ( Barkham & Moss, 2012). As emphasized by Gutnicki (2010), â€Å"smart phones are being utilized to cheat in the classroom and to record/post inappropriate information about teachers. ... Concurrently, smartphones should be banned in classrooms for being a distraction and taking crucial time from focusing on the instructions. From among the schools that have confirmed the distractive effect of smartphones, instituting banning or prohibitive policies of their use within the classroom setting were noted to have gained benefits in terms of improvements of academic behavior. As noted from a spokesperson for Cockshut Hill Technology College in Yardley, Birmingham, â€Å"we introduced a complete ban on mobile phones two years ago because of the disruption they were causing†¦and it has improved behaviour† (Barkham & Moss, 2012, par. 14). If the collective time spent of viewing and attending to applications in the smartphones are removed, these time would completely be focused on academic endeavors and instructors would enhance students’ awareness of subject matters that would benefit them most. Thus, the banning of smartphones has evidently proven that stu dents’ behavior and academic performance significantly improved. Finally, smartphone use were clearly linked to cyberbullying. Banning smartphones within the classroom setting and within the campus would therefore minimize time spent to send distructive messages that aim to ridicule, discriminate, or victimize unsuspecting students. As emphasized, â€Å"a recent survey conducted by the National Crime Prevention Council reported that 43% of middle school students: received an e-mail or an instant message that made them upset had something posted on a social networking site that made them upset had been made fun of in a chat room; had something posted on a Web site that made them upset; had something posted online that they did not want others to see; and were afraid to go on the computer†