Transformational Change Essay Example for Free

Transformational Change Essay The Transformational learning process conceived by Jack Merzirow has four stages. Transformational learning is a process to help people solve their problems and help them to make life changes. The four stages are; recognizing a significant problem, confronting it intensely , finding a solution, and integrating a new perspective as well as a new set of assumptions into your life pattern. Recognizing a significant problem is the first step in being able to figure out what the problem or issue is in your past or current life. Once you are able to recognize the problem you will be able to talk out the situation or problem with someone. Confronting a problem intensely is difficult. Especially once you have to be honest with yourself. If you are having a difficult time in your life it makes it difficult to remain calm and level headed. Most people have a hard time looking at themselves and realizing they need help. If you remain calm and level headed you will be able to see the problem and figure out a solution. Finding a solution to the problem or situation can be a process. Once you are able to look at the problem calmly and rationally a decision or solution will come easier. You will be able to start to see light at the end of the tunnel. The steps to the solution will become more clear. Integrating a new perspective and a new set of assumptions into your life you must be able to understand new ideas, thoughts, and points of views differently. Realizing this will help guide all of your expectations to the right direction and way of thinking. You will realize that being open to new ideas and thoughts will help you to make the right decision and feel good about it. When you face a significant issue in your life, such as considering a totally new career or adopting a value system required by a new relationship, you are entering a learning cycle with complex challenges. Although the learning resulting from a significant experience of this kind may be renewing, its outcome is likely to be more far-reaching than that. Because of the depth of its outcomes, this type of learning experience is called transformational. It produces a new level of meaning in your life. Inevitably, the transformational learning cycle moves through the stages of recognizing a significant problem, confronting it intensely, finding a solution, and integrating a new perspective and a new set of assumptions into your life pattern. This process requires a great deal of reflection and is often painful and stressful. Transformation, though desirable, rarely comes easily. It separates life into distinct â€Å"before† and â€Å"after† realities. ) Source taken from Ashford Textbook Chapter 5. 2. When I was 22 I found out I was pregnant. This was a terrible time in my life. I was working three jobs just to make ends meet for myself. I had been dating my now husband Jeremy,but at that time boyfriend of only six months. We were friends for a year before we started dating. At the time I was on two different types of birth control for medical reasons and was told I would not be able to get pregnant. Being young and stupid I never questioned my Doctor any more about it. I was in disbelief. In my mind there was just no way. I was also still menstruating. Anxiety, questions and depression were all I could think about when I found out. I had to confront this issue but how? First my biggest concern how far along was I? Second should I have the baby, have an abortion or give it up for adoption? Last how did this happen? Once I confronted the issue with Jeremy we were both scared and angry at each other we ended up breaking up. I was emotional and scared. He was young and immature. I found out I was four months along, this limited my options. I decided to keep the baby. Now she is 15 beautiful and smart. I explained to Jeremy I would be keeping her. We did not talk till I was a little over seven months. I reached my seventh month before we decided together to come up with a solution. We both knew we wanted to be together. Neither of us wanted to be without the other but we were so scared and young we didnt know what to expect. I decided to quit one job and only work two. I had my own apartment so he moved in with me. It was really difficult for us the first couple of years, mostly trust was the issue. Trust is something we both value. Now that we have been married and together for a total of 18 years we look at things differently. We have to keep an open mind and listen to each other. We don’t always get along but we do have respect for each other. Together we have a friendship and a bond that will last us for the rest of our lives. Ideas, thoughts and emotions are always changing just like points of views and expectations. I know now my expectations of Jeremy are completely different for when we first got together. Mezirow identified seven phases occurring in the challenging learning process: experiencing a disorienting dilemma, self-examination, critical assessment of assumptions, recognizing that others have gone through a similar process, exploring a process, formulating a plan of action and reintegration. Mezirows self-examination was the biggest and hardest for me in the beginning of our relationship. I felt like we had rushed into having a baby and moving in together. I was questioning myself as well as Jeremy. I felt like I didnt know him well enough but then on the other hand we had created life. I knew I loved Jeremy and there was not anyone else I wanted to be with. I just knew he was not ready to be a father or a husband at that time. I would look at myself and wonder for the first 3 years we were together and wonder if I made the right choice for me. I had so many plans and Jeremy and my daughter were not in them. Now I look back and I am happy with the choices I made. I just wish I had went to college instead of just working to pay the bills. The transformational learning process created by Mezirow has helped people to identify their problems and life choices. Once you use they processes to figure out the problem you will be able to find the correct solution.

Literature Has Much More Value Than Television Essay -- Argumentative

Literature Has Much More Value Than Television It may go without saying that there are those who will never study, appreciate, or even perhaps consider literature as it is known in academic circles. There are those for whom the written word may have, at best, utilitarian purposes, and for whom any piece of writing beyond a technical manual should, at least, be a work of â€Å"non-fiction,† designed to impart a clearly stated morsel of information or worthy opinion. Part of the explanation for this may coincide with the same general reason that some people never consider religion: the proponents of literature – as is sometimes the case with the proponents of religion – sometimes themselves make their cause a used-up, weary, and trying thing, and may remove from it all the beauty and potential which it might, in the proper hands, convey. Arguably, much like religion, literature has a transcendent value, and fulfills an essentially universal need, in every human being. After all, even the most ardent opponent of the usage of literature in his or her own life embraces forms which complete virtually the same need within him; that is, myths, folklore, stories, movies, television, and even song, occupy essentially the same place and function as literature in the human person, albeit in a form often immeasurably more crude. And, as hotly debated as the following may be in the milieu of post-modern and relativist academic circles, the need to convey truths and explore the human person through story and myth may reach its most sophisticated form in literature. That, of course, raises the implied debate as to just exactly what constitutes literature. If poems and theater can be properly called â€Å"literature,† can not film, or popular s... ...evision, and now, following in their footsteps, much written â€Å"literature,† seek mostly to entertain, to lull viewers into a comfortable despondency and create a sense of need for consumption, all of which perpetuates the success of these mediums. The vacuous lack of effort required of the viewer by television points to the factor that may simultaneously be literature’s greatest value and its most daunting hurdle to many potential readers. That is, literature invites readers, at its best, to learn a new set of codes and means of digesting language and tales; it may require, as in (for example) opera, learning an entirely foreign collection of meanings, linguistic cues, symbols, and, in effect, a new kind of listening. But those who seem to most appreciate opera, much like those who seem to most appreciate literature, swear that the payoff is well worth the toil. Literature Has Much More Value Than Television Essay -- Argumentative Literature Has Much More Value Than Television It may go without saying that there are those who will never study, appreciate, or even perhaps consider literature as it is known in academic circles. There are those for whom the written word may have, at best, utilitarian purposes, and for whom any piece of writing beyond a technical manual should, at least, be a work of â€Å"non-fiction,† designed to impart a clearly stated morsel of information or worthy opinion. Part of the explanation for this may coincide with the same general reason that some people never consider religion: the proponents of literature – as is sometimes the case with the proponents of religion – sometimes themselves make their cause a used-up, weary, and trying thing, and may remove from it all the beauty and potential which it might, in the proper hands, convey. Arguably, much like religion, literature has a transcendent value, and fulfills an essentially universal need, in every human being. After all, even the most ardent opponent of the usage of literature in his or her own life embraces forms which complete virtually the same need within him; that is, myths, folklore, stories, movies, television, and even song, occupy essentially the same place and function as literature in the human person, albeit in a form often immeasurably more crude. And, as hotly debated as the following may be in the milieu of post-modern and relativist academic circles, the need to convey truths and explore the human person through story and myth may reach its most sophisticated form in literature. That, of course, raises the implied debate as to just exactly what constitutes literature. If poems and theater can be properly called â€Å"literature,† can not film, or popular s... ...evision, and now, following in their footsteps, much written â€Å"literature,† seek mostly to entertain, to lull viewers into a comfortable despondency and create a sense of need for consumption, all of which perpetuates the success of these mediums. The vacuous lack of effort required of the viewer by television points to the factor that may simultaneously be literature’s greatest value and its most daunting hurdle to many potential readers. That is, literature invites readers, at its best, to learn a new set of codes and means of digesting language and tales; it may require, as in (for example) opera, learning an entirely foreign collection of meanings, linguistic cues, symbols, and, in effect, a new kind of listening. But those who seem to most appreciate opera, much like those who seem to most appreciate literature, swear that the payoff is well worth the toil.

Positivism: Strict Scientific Method

Positivism is a philosophy that stated that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. The main thrust of the positivist research tends to follow certain scientific and measurable methods to conduct a research. A positivist approach is one that is considered objective, detached and if I may put that way, structured by the researcher's views who test a hypothesis.It is usually associated with quantitative data collection methods and statistical analysis. The positivist researcher try to be at a value free, unbiased and neutral in all respect while conducting the researcher under the assumptions positivism. â€Å"Using scientific method and language to investigate and write about human experience is supposed to keep the research free of the values, passions, politics and ideology of the researcher. This approach to research is called positivist, or positivist-empiri cist and it is the dominant one among the general public. (Anne B Ryan) Positivism sees social science as an organized method for combining deductive logic with precise empirical observations of individual behavior in order to discover and confirm a set of probabilistic causal laws that can be used to predict general patterns of human activity.On the same time positivism approach found to be inefficient when we include social structure of society, life complexity and other problem which can’t be covered when we try to use the quantitative methods to conduct the research. This scientific approach which positivism espouses is rightly thought to be inadequate when it comes to learning about how people live, how they view the world, how they cope with it, how they change it, and so on. †(Anne B Ryan) In the positivism only those topics has been selected those having a public sphere and with the blend of mathematical and technical advantage because research characterized by these norms considered to be efficient and reliable in the positivism playground. Marxism, relies on experiments and verification, objective experience, history, scientific logic and reasoning for acquiring knowledge.Marxism is wholly science oriented because truth based on experiments and verification is its basis — its entire structure rests on scientific experiments, and scientific truth. Marxism holds that on the question of knowing truth science is far more powerful than the power of an individual. Under Marxian approach it is only rational to depend upon science rather than on the belief Orientalism is a form of cultural studies in which the concept of orientalism or the difference between east and west is base of the theory.With the start of European colonization the Europeans came in contact with the lesser developed countries of the east. They found their civilization and culture very exotic, and established the science of orientalism, which was the study of the orie ntals or the people from these exotic civilization. In this process Europeans divided the world into two parts; the east and the west or the occident and the orient or the civilized and the uncivilized. This was totally an artificial boundary; and it was laid on the basis of the concept of them and us or theirs and ours. The Europeans used orientalism to define themselves.Some particular attributes were associated with the orientals, and whatever the orientals weren’t the occidents were. The Europeans defined themselves as the superior race compared to the orientals; and they justified their colonization by this concept. They said that it was their duty towards the world to civilize the uncivilized world. The main problem, however, arose when the Europeans started generalizing the attributes they associated with orientals, and started portraying these artificial characteristics associated with orientals in their western world through their scientific reports, literary work, a nd other media sources.What happened was that it created a certain image about the orientals in the European mind and in doing that infused a bias in the European attitude towards the orientals. This prejudice was also found in the orientalists and all their scientific research and reports were under the influence of this. The generalized attributes associated with the orientals can be seen even today, for example, the Arabs are defined as uncivilized people; and Islam is seen as religion of the terrorist. Another feature of orientalism was that the culture of the orientals was explained to the European audience by linking them to the western culture.

John Edwards Sermon, Damned If You Do, Damned If You...

In the eyes of God, we are all sinners. July 8, 1741, John Edwards preached to his congregation that no matter what we do, God would send us to hell unless we spill our blood on the cross. Edwards’s sermon was one of the most pivotal, volatile, and stirring sermons that set the standard for hellfire and brimstone sermons. Edwards’s describes all of us as sinners and how our lives lay perilously in god’s angry hands. To this day, we still have pastors preaching hellfire and brimstone sermons. While 272 years separate John Edwards from modern day pastors, we can still see the ever-lasting correlation that is derived from John Edwards in modern day pastors. Edwards describes hell as being the most horrific place and how no one is immune from†¦show more content†¦That question weighs on everyone’s mind. What do I do: stop drinking, stop having martial affairs, stop sitting at home watching the pregame football shows and go to church. From John Edwards ’s time to now, we all have different views on heaven, on hell, and sinning. But John Hagee says, â€Å"We must spill our blood on thy cross to be saved by Jesus Christ and almighty God (Hagee).† What the hell does that mean John Hagee? No matter what I do, no matter what I say. I’m still bound to the fiery wells of hell. I mine as well live my life to the fullest, drink and hang out with Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, and Jose Cuervo, enjoy my time with my wife and kids, and watch football on Sundays. Why should I let fear have a hold on me? In the end, we all end up in some place weather its heaven or hell. Today’s pastors have the same format and the same connection that John Edwards’s had 272 years ago. Prime example is Pastor Charles Lawson preaching. Charles Lawson preaches with immense intensity to capture your soul. He yells at the top of his lungs, and raises his hand and tells his congregation, â€Å"You must embrace God or you will go to hell (Lawson).† Lawson brings up recent events such as deaths in the community. Just like Edwards brought up about your kin dying unexpectedly, Lawson brings up how any day could be your day of judgment. Bringing up recent events and unexpected death gives you since of connection with yourself and death. Do you want God to judge