The Muslim World Essay Example for Free

The Muslim World Essay World is divided into different divisions depending upon the economic conditions, race, culture and most importantly religion. The division of world is more evident after the September 11 attacks into Muslim world and anti-Muslim world. The political ideology and attitudes were now deeply rooted among the individuals also. â€Å"The anti-Muslim attitudes of West united the Muslim world â€Å"is a blanket statement and have strong relevance to the present day. Western attitude: The conflict between in not a new one, it is continuing from 14 centuries some of the conflicts of the history are Ottoman Turkish empire expansion, quasi-colonial regimes by Britain and France, Britain occupation of Iran etc. The first and most important issue is the stand of United States in the ‘Israeli-Palestinian’ Conflict. The need to explain the policies of it on the issue were undermined and unheard. The role of the Western media which is publishing derogatory statements is also a cause of concern. US media used the terms such as Muslim fundamentalist, Shia extremist, Wahhabi zealots, Islamic Jihad, Islamic suicide bomber, Arab killer etc (Ali Khalid, 2008). The Muslim world is victimized more than the situation. Many allegations made by the West on different Muslim countries without any proofs. West failed in providing the evidence of the allegations after the war against the Iraq and its shift in the reasons for war, Muslim prisoners were tortured even after the wars, prolonged occupation etc are also serving as anti-American resentment (Duiker Spielvogel, 2009). Strong factors that united Muslim World: The anti-Muslim attitude united the Muslim world and started to have a common perception as a whole on West. The main reasons for this is unfavorable images where the Muslims are unfairly portrayed in media, Western Military presence in middle east making them U. S long term military base brining insecurity in the region, The containment policy toward Iraq with economic and military sanctions on it, the strong U. S policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict, Support of the West to unpopular regimes etc. All these factors are allowing the Muslim world to rethink on their status ( Prados, 2001). From the Western perspective the main reasons for the anti-American resentment in the Muslim world is due to education, media and Anti-Americanism (Gentzkow, Shapiro, 2004). West counters: Even West is taking some of the measures to overcome this anti-American negative approach such as implementing the trade and aid programs to decrease economic inequalities, to change the unfavorable image, seeking support on U. S policy on Iraq, planning to developing new strategy on Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, influence positive open political systems etc. Conclusion: U. S is successful in brining gap between the Muslim world to an extent where it divided it into US allies, US enemies and Neutral countries basing on its relations. As a whole West is using all its strategies to change its image and forcing the Muslim world to react to against terrorism, the Muslim world persecution is different. But carefully watching Muslim world is aware of the West motives and started to have a common agenda and this will be fruitful in coming days. The statement â€Å"The anti-Muslim attitudes of West united the Muslim world† is justified by looking at the anti-Muslim factors causing the unification of Muslim world. Even though the West and U. S in particular are taking the measure to have a better image in the Muslim World, the Muslim community is expecting more and concrete steps at ground level rather than confining to the media statements. Annotated Bibliography: Ali, S Khalid (2008). Mass Media and Muslim World: Portrayal of Muslim by â€Å"News Week† and â€Å"Time† (1991-2001). European Journal of Scientific Research, 21, 554-580. This is a research article which examines the representation and coverage of 12 Muslim countries. This investigation was done by the Time Magazine and the New Week during 1991-2001. This article has presented content analysis of 218 articles which belongs to 12 Muslim countries. Duiker, W. J Spielvogel, J. J. (2009). World History, Volume 2. 6th ed. MA: Cengage Learning. This book provides an overview of world history which discovers experiences and challenges to recognize global patterns. This book covers each and every aspect like political, economical, religious, social, cultural, intellectual and military history. It takes a global approach by comparing cultures throughout world history. This book helped to know the Muslim World perception on the U. S and also how U. S intervened in the internal aspects of Middle East. Prados, A. B. (2001). Middle East: Attitudes toward the United States. Congressional Research Service. Retrieved from: http://fpc. state. gov/documents/organization/7858. pdf This report discusses the attitude of Muslims and Arabs of Middle East against United Nations. It explained the factors which have created hatred towards the United States and the methods to deal with this position. Gentzkow, M. A. Shapiro, J. M. (2004). Media, Education and Anti-Americanism In the Muslim World. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18, 117–133. This paper is based on the media, education and anti-Americanism in the Muslim world by taking a survey of 10,000 people from nine Muslim countries. It examines how media use and education relate to the positivity towards United States and their belief.

What Makes Shakespeares Hamlet Popular?

What Makes Shakespeares Hamlet Popular? The Enduring Popularity of Shakespeares Hamlet Why is Hamlet so popular? Shakespeare wrote countless masterpieces, many of which are debatably more exciting (The Tempest), momentous (Macbeth), intriguing (Othello), romantic (Romeo and Juliet) and profound (King Lear). But not only has Hamlet been produced more by the Royal Shakespeare company than any other work, it is a favourite of troupes (and audiences) around the world. From the play’s inception in 1602, up until the National Theatre’s acclaimed production in 2000 (and beyond), Hamlet has captured the imagination. A close examination of the play, along with a careful focus on its themes, will shed some light on Hamlet’s 400 year old enthrall, with a special emphasis on its relevance to a modern British audience. Hamlet is a tale of revenge, murder and existential and spiritual angst. The title character is a young prince whose father, the King of Denmark, has unexpectedly passed away. His brother, Claudius, has inherited the throne and taken the former king’s wife as his own. Hamlet is visited by his father’s ghost, who informs him that he was murdered by Claudius, and that his death needs to be avenged. Instead of instantly doing so, Hamlet attempts to first confirm his uncle’s guilt by feigning madness, and later by staging a play of the murder, to which Claudius’ reaction essentially confirms his guilt. But even with the evidence in hand, Hamlet is still unable to enact his revenge. After accidentally killing the king’s councilor Polonius, he is deported to England, and upon his return enters into a duel with Polonius’ son, Laertes. However, the fight is a setup; Laertes’s blade is poisoned, as is the wine in a goblet from which Hamlet is t o drink. While Hamlet wins the duel and ends up killing Claudius, he too succumbs to the poison and dies. In the play, Hamlet is by far the major presence: his problem is central to the plot, and his public and private exultations and speculations dominate the action (Hoy, 1991). Furthermore, the role of Hamlet is far larger than any other in all of Shakespeare’s works. While the play is filled with ambiguities, the biggest of all have to do with Hamlet’s motivations and actions (Levin, 1959). There is always more to him than the other characters in the play can figure out. Part of this has to do with the way Shakespeare crafted him – his intense pensiveness, his uncertainness, the vagaries of his actions – but part of it is Hamlet himself, who actually tells other characters that there is more to him than meets the eye, notably his mother and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. In addition, when he speaks, he sounds as if there’s something important he’s not saying, maybe something even he is not aware of (Hoy, 1991). What separates Hamlet from other revenge plays is that the action we expect to see is continually postponed (Wilson, 1951). Instead of being based on activity, the play is all about character, and really only the character of Hamlet. Many people regard Hamlet as a play about indecisiveness, but more than this, it can be seen as an examination of action itself; that is, the conditions necessary for such, and the appropriate amount required, depending on the circumstances. The question of how to act is affected not only by Hamlet’s need for certainty, but by emotional and psychological factors (Halliday, 1964). Hamlet himself appears to distrust the idea that it’s even possible to act in a controlled, rational way. For when he does act, he does so swiftly and recklessly. This extreme shift from paralysis to impulsiveness further adds to his enigmatic nature. Without action to sustain the play, the plot instead revolves around Hamlet contemplating various questions, among them: Is the ghost what it appears to be, or is it really trying to deceive him? How can the facts about a crime be known without there being any witnesses? Can Hamlet know the intricacies of Claudius’s soul by studying his behaviour? Can we ever really know whether our actions will have the consequences we want them to have? Can we know what happens in the afterlife? (Levin, 1959). This last question is one of the most powerful throughout the play. There are times when Hamlet seems to feel that death itself may bring the answers to his deepest concerns (Wilson, 1951). The question of his own death plagues him, and he more than once contemplates whether or not suicide is a legitimate choice in an unbearably painful world. Hamlet’s grief is such that he frequently longs for death to end his suffering, but worries that if he commits suicide, he will be suffer eternally in hell. In his famous â€Å"To be or not to be† soliloquy, Hamlet concludes that no one would choose to endure the pain of life if they were not afraid of what will come after death, and that it is this fear which causes morality to interfere with action (Levin, 1959). In sum, Hamlet, is ambiguous, vague and mysterious, uncertain, indecisive and pensive, self-loathing and self-reflexive, simultaneously afraid to live and afraid to die. Is it any wonder then that people can relate to him? People enjoy Hamlet because he evokes their sympathy. His character is flesh and blood. He doesn’t just act; he thinks, he questions, he feels. Hamlet is extremely philosophical and contemplative, and takes the time to analyze difficult questions that cannot be answered with any certainty. His melancholy is in many ways endearing. Though his actual age is debatable, in essence he is the quintessential teenager, afraid to grow up and take on burdens and responsibility he knows he must and yet is not ready for. His urgency is contagious. Beyond this, there are the questions he deals with, primarily those of death and the afterlife, that haunt us all. It is extremely rare to not only hear such questions so well articulated, but to hear them articulated at all. These conversations are largely relegated to our own heads. They are intimate and personal, and are seldom expressed. To see them on stage is to bear witness to our own souls. But this only explains why the character of Hamlet is so popular. Though he dominates the course of the action (or lack thereof), there is another reason why the play itself has been so successful and so resonant, which has to do with the famous line: â€Å"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark† (Hamlet, I, iv, 90). Everything is related in Hamlet, including the health of the ruling royal family and that of the nation as a whole (Hoy, 1991). Throughout the play, there are explicit connections drawn between the two. Denmark is often described as a physical body made ill by the moral corruption of Claudius. While the dead King Hamlet is portrayed as a strong, noble ruler under whose guard the state was in good health, Claudius, is regarded as wicked, corrupt and out to satisfy only his own appetites (Wilson, 1951). Throughout history, similar correlations have been made, from Stalin and Hitler to Blair and Bush. While the latter pair are perhaps far less sinister, their po litical decisions have similarly shaped the perceptions of the citizens of the nations they lead, as well as the perceptions of those on the outside. Our leaders are responsible for the overall â€Å"health† of the state, and the war in Iraq and other actions are doing little at the moment to paint a picture of good health. Close observers of Hamlet, no matter of what time period, sense this parallel instantly. Modern society, specifically the UK, is still in Hamlet’s thrall. In today’s world, with so many problems and too few solutions, it is easy to feel powerless and paralyzed. There are choices to be made, and actions to take, but 1) which ones should be carried out and 2) will they even do any good? The modern person is at a crossroads, and in some ways Hamlet personifies this better than anyone else. Throw in the play’s description of the state as being deceased, and the work comes across almost as the poster child for modern malaise. This is evidenced in the 2000 production by the National Theatre, which is only one of many recent and successful incarnations of the play. The title role was played by Russell Beale, who prepared for the part by looking into himself in an attempt to bring out the â€Å"everyman quality† of Hamlet, along with his intense self-reflection and (albeit feigned) madness. To do justice to Shakespeare’s words, in this case gra vitating between wit, wryness and self-reflection, Beale decided not to force emotion, but to instead â€Å"get there slowly, to get the emotional arc right, and not find too many moments of crisis† (Beale, 2000). The actor, in perhaps a bit of method, decided to try and capture Hamlet’s grief by using his own, in this case the fact that his mother died a few weeks before the performance. He also used his frustration over â€Å"not being able to feel enough† to further cement and perfect his interpretation (Beale, 2000). By all accounts he didn’t disappoint. The Independent declared Beale’s Hamlet â€Å"not at all ‘Hamlet-like,’ and his performance â€Å"moving and crystal clear,† characterized by â€Å"an aching regret for the world that might have been rather than a seething contempt for the world that exists† (Taylor, 2000). When Hamlet returned from England, the reviewer found him emanating a â€Å"shyly gracious acceptance of the mystery of life and fate,† and in dying â€Å"moved towards the audience as if painfully and belatedly conscious of their presence, imparting an even more shattering sense of the waste of a noble life† (Taylor, 2000). The Evening Standard wrote that the performances illuminated the text in ways that made it fresh and accessible, and Beale’s performance of â€Å"clarity, humanity and humility held the audience spellbound†¦they could only suffer with his confusion, grief self-loathing and doubt† (de Jongh, 2000). The Guardian complimented Beale for being â€Å"everything one could hope for: witty, ironic, intelligent, ‘a Henry James who is also a swordsman’ to borrow Harold Bloom’s phrase,† and: â€Å"bookish, inward, reflective and intensely capable of self-scrutiny† (Billington, 2000). Furthermore, the paper admired his â€Å"capacity for surprise, moral sensitivity and parodic wit† and his ability to convey â€Å"the paralysis of the intellectual caught up in a world of realpolitik,† resulting in a â€Å"first-rate, deeply intellectual Hamlet whose weapons are primarily verbal and who understands that revenge cannot offer meaningful redress† (Billington, 2000). In the National Theatre’s production, along with countless others over four centuries, a central theme is constantly repeated: Hamlet’s self-loathing, specifically in regards to his lack of feeling, which, as much as his lack of action, makes him guilty. This aspect of his character is perhaps more relevant today than ever. The theme of powerlessness, along with the tangible frustration and guilt that comes with it, can easily find a home in the mind of a modern audience member. In addition, Hamlet’s intensely relatable â€Å"human all too human† qualities, his probing thoughts on the afterlife and the theme of the â€Å"nation as diseased body† are so universal and timeless that they shed much light on the play’s appeal. Perhaps there will come by a day when Hamlet fails to strike a chord with audiences. But for now, Shakespeare’s masterful creation and revolutionary character study is safely ingrained in our consciousness. Bibliography Beale, Russell. The Readiness is All. National Theatre, 2000. http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=2485 Billington, Michael. The Guardian, September 6, 2000. Crystal, David, and Crystal, Ben. The Shakespeare Miscellany. Penguin: New York, 2005. de Jongh, Nicholas. The Evening Standard, September 6, 2000. Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964. New York: Penguin, 1964. Hoy, Cyrus. Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1991. Levin, Harry. The Question of Hamlet. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Braunmuller, A.R., Orgel, Stephen (Eds.). New York: Penguin Classics, 2001. Taylor, Paul. The Independent, September 6, 2000. Wilson, John. What Happens in Hamlet. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1951.

The Optimists Daughter: A Look at Death and Dying Essays -- Optimist

The Optimist's Daughter: A Look at Death and Dying  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "Fay struck out with her hands, hitting at Major Bullock and Mr. Pitts and Sis, fighting with her mother, too, for a moment. She showed her claws at Laurel, and broke from the preachers last-minute arms and threw herself forward across the coffin on to the pillow, driving her lips without aim against the face under hers. She was dragged back into the library, screaming, by Miss Tennyson Bullock, out of sight behind the blanket of greenery. Judge McKelva's smoking chair lay behind them, overturned" (86). This is a short excerpt from The Optimist's Daughter (1972) by the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, Eudora Welty. The story is centered around Laurel McKelva Hand, a young woman who left her home in the South to live in Chicago. While in Chicago she meets Philip Hand, and they are married. Philip, however, goes to war and never returns. Laurel is now venturing to New Orleans to be with her dying father. After his death Laurel and her obnoxious stepmother, Fay, travel back to Laurel's home town of Mount Salus, Mississippi. Once in Mount Salus, Laurel is greeted with many friends and acquaintances. The whole town has already prepared for Laurel and the remains of her father. The day of the funeral the whole town stops to pay their respects; the school ,the bank, the post office, and the court house all close. The funeral is perfect, but Laurel struggles with letting her father go. Laurel's "bridesmaids" also struggle; the "bridesmaids" are Laurel's closest friends and range from young to elderly women. After the funeral is over Fay returns with her family to Texas for a few days while Laurel finishes saying goodbye to her old house. Fay is very bitter t... ...eels about her. Fay, on the other hand, would be lost without her Texan accent. The Optimist's Daughter opens the mind of the reader to let him see the many reactions of friends and relatives to death and dying. As Fay strikes out during the funeral it is easy to recognize that culture also plays into people's reactions. When Fay kisses her husband goodbye, while he was in the coffin, it is because that is what her mother would have done. It can be very hard to deal with the death of a loved one, but sometimes it is even harder to deal with how others are reacting. The novel explains that, "Memory lived not in initial possession but in the freed hands, pardoned and freed, and in the heart that can empty but fill again, in the patterns of restored dreams"(179). Works Cited: Welty, Eudora. The Optimist's Daughter. The Vintage Book 1990 Edition. New York.

Can I See Your ID? :: essays research papers

Can I See Your ID? The introduction of young people to beverage alcohol varies considerably in different cultural settings. In many societies, the age at which the purchase and public consumption of beverage alcohol becomes legal is also the age at which other "adult" rights and responsibilities are bestowed. What is neither clear nor consistent is the age at which this should occur. Communities recognize the capacity for alcohol to be abused, particularly by young and inexperienced college students. The imposition of a legal drinking age limit is one aspect of a society's desire to reduce the potential for harms associated with inappropriate drinking patterns. Believe it or not, students who are under 21 do drink. Every weekend, students armed with fake IDs go out to intoxicate their worries away while at the same time attempting to avoid the dreaded Minor In Possession tickets and the Department of Public Safety. Tougher punishments and regulations seem to have little effect on the number o f people who are willing to risk legal ramifications for a drink. The government can help ease the fruitless struggle between students and University officials by lowering the lawful drinking age to 18. At the ripe age of 18, you must enlist to Selective Service. This, meaning that you must tell the government that you are a man now and that you can fight for the country you live in if needed. Seeing how I can go die for my country at the green age of 18; I feel that I should be able to have a drink when I want to. It may seem unfair to many observers to allow 18-20 year olds to marry, to have children, to own cars, homes and firearms and to be financially and socially independent, and yet to be legally prohibited from drinking a glass of wine in a restaurant, or even a glass of champagne at their own wedding. Current laws regarding underage drinking do not make sense. In 1984, Congress enacted the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which required states to enforce a drinking age of 21 or risk losing some federal highway funds (Engs). The act was originally established to prevent inexperienced drivers from crossing state lines to drink legally and driving back drunk to their home st ates (Engs). However, the genius behind the minimum age act does not apply to the University. Most students do not have cars on campus and those that do are often over 21.

certain slant of light :: essays research papers

How Nature Brings Emotions of Solemnity The chief characteristic of this feeling drawn by the â€Å"slant of light† is its painful oppressiveness. "Oppresses," "weight," "hurt," "despair," and "affliction" convey this aspect. A large component in it is probably consciousness of the fact of death, though this is probably not the whole of its content nor is this consciousness necessarily fully formulated by the mind. Yet here we see the subtle connection between the hour and the mood. For the season is winter, when the year is approaching its end. And the time is late afternoon (winter afternoons are short at best, and the light slants), when the day is failing. The suggestion of death is caught up by the weighty cathedral tunes (funeral music possibly—but hymns are also much concerned with death) and by "the distance on the look of death." The stillness of the hour ("the landscape listens, Shadows hold their breath") is also suggestive of th e stillness of death. But besides the oppressiveness of the feeling, it has certain impressiveness too. It is weighty, solemn, and majestic, like organ music. This quality is conveyed by "weight of cathedral tunes," "heavenly," "seal" (suggesting the seal on some important official document), and "imperial." This quality of the mood may be partly caused by the stillness of the moment, by the richness of the slanting sunlight (soon to be followed by sunset), and by the image of death, which it calls up. The mood gives "heavenly" hurt. "Heavenly" suggests the immateriality of the hurt, which leaves "no scar"; the source of the sunlight—the sky; the ultimate source of both sunlight and death—God. The hurt is given internally "where the meanings are"—that is, in the soul, the psyche, or mind-that part of one which assigns "meanings"—consciously or intuitively—to life and to phenomena like this. "None may teach it anything"—Both the sunlight and the mood it induces are beyond human correction or alleviation; they are final and irrevocable—"sealed." There is no lifting this seal— this despair. "When it goes, 'tis like the distance On the look of death"—The lines call up the image of the stare in the eyes of a dead man, not focused, but fixed on the distance.

Latino Operation and Diversity

In recent years The U.S. society’s idealized image is diminishing.   In the United States the process of labeling the group of individuals affects the meaning of citizenship. Oboler discovers the history of â€Å"Hispanics† and explains the meaning of ethnicity that contributes in forming people’s lives and identities. Oboler has conducted many interviews with the different groups known as â€Å"Hispanics† and noted down many social values of this group. By illustrating it Oboler further says that a Mexican has different historical relationship with the U.S. and different cultural background like Brazilian descent. â€Å"Hispanics† also contain different meanings and social values, which matches to their social position, gender and also their social values following their country of origin.  Without social planning Latinos union can never be a reality. There are many issues that hamper the ethnic emergence. The cultural ground is very isolated. The actions of the states are very contradictory to give any hope to the emergence of the new Latino ethnicity.  In the paper we will argue that Latin American Groups in this country require a lots of research that aspires to educate them about their culture, which is vibrant. There is a requirement that Latin Americans should know about their literature as there is no place of rich Hispanic literature in U.S. educational system. In the U.S. this disparity, based on cultural differences, is exaggerated by the cultural loss. In this society the Latinos has to compete the new settings. The U.S. is a very big country and the different socio-cultural groups and individuals survive under the condition of competitions. The adaptation of these multi-cultural socio groups varies from the residential separations of Mexicans who are living in the parts of the Southwest to the Blacks and Cubans in South Florida (B.E. Aguirre and Rogelio Saenz).  The Latino identity is affected by the geographic distribution also. The Cuban population has great diversity. Similarly, the ethnic identity in Mexicans is really exciting. They have many ethnic labels like â€Å"Mexican American†, â€Å"Chicanos†, and â€Å"Mexican†. In fact Mexican originated people who use the label â€Å"Hispanics† are criticized to get more general ethnic identity (B.E. Aguirre and Rogelio Saenz). Actually, Latinos should be educated about the categories created by the other ethnic groups. There is the need of creating a realistic appreciation among the Latinos so they can get involved with the different cultural groups.  It is very difficult to establish a Latino identity in different Latino ethnic groups. Latinos general movement prefers Latinism and it generates the specific movement organization. It’s important part will be to establish a school to train the members of this group about Latino activities (B.E. Aguirre and Rogelio Saenz). It has been observed that big societal forces play important role in a student’s learning and that happens within a particular ethnic and racial community. A teacher’s expectation is also different from different race student. So the different level of teaching is also adopted for various ethnic groups. If we compare the White and Asian students to Africans and Latinos, then we will find that Latinos and Africans are positioned in lower academic tracks (Jerome E Morris et all).  Ogbu has developed a cultural ecological model where he explains why the schools are failure. He encourages the ethnic groups to enter the dominant society by making group entry. Here he includes immigrant minorities such as African immigrants, Asian Americans and immigrants from the Caribbean and also Native Americans. Now it is there in the news that many of Hispanics are living in jails instead of going schools. This number of Hispanics in jails increased in 1980s. in 2006 it was 90 percent that is less in comparison to 94 percent in 1980s. References: More blacks, Latinos in jail than college dorms, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21001543/ Morris, Jerome E, Ethnicity Race and Culture – Latino Growth, Racial And Ethnic Minority Students In Higher Education – CULTURAL EXPECTATIONS AND STUDENT LEARNING, Oboler, Suzanne, Ethnic Lebels, Latino Lives, Identity and the Politics of (Re)Presentation in the United States, University of Minnesota press,

Cognitive, Research ad Learning Theory

The diversity in classrooms today challenges teachers to develop cultural and social competencies together with keeping current with the developing theories in learning and education. For example, in Avram Noam Chomsky’s study of the language development, which can be extended to the process of learning any body of knowledge, he points out that language can not be learned by conditioning or stimuli alone (Sylwester, 2005). This suggests that need to develop associations regarding the meaning and concept of objects: for a child to learn that the earth is the third planet from the sun, the concept of ordinal order must first be established. Thus, Jean Piaget suggest that learning programs should be student centered to support the individual cognitive capacity and methodology (Gardner, 2006). The case of presented by Maria Testoni’s sixth-grade class reflects this challenge: the diversity in learning styles, academic skills and ethnicity as well as their work habits, behaviors and levels of participation requires the development of approaches unique to the child (Griffin et al, 2003).   However, in reality, there are significant constraints in doing so in terms of resources, expertise and time. Thus, there is a need for teachers to strategize their methods. In Maria’s case, one approach is to utilize a cognitive perspective for the learning theories that will serve as the foundation of her strategies. 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚   What factors are influencing students’ assimilation and accommodation? 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚   What are the commonalities and contrasts of students’ schema or context? 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚   What are the modalities of methods of accommodation? 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚   How can mental processes of learning be mapped? 5.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Are there typologies to characterize the population based on individual characteristic of students? 6.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Can the cognitive evaluation of students provide insights to current behavior and performance in class? In the use of cognitive theory and research and learning theory, Maria’s focus will be in understanding the mental processes of her students. Cognition, suggests that there is learning occurs through the process of generative development (Cronin& Mandich, 2004). In using this as a leaning theory, Maria will have to consider the existing competencies of her students and the curriculum she is creating for them. This will then consider observed behavior become secondary in the evaluation (Sylwester, 2005). The approach can limit behavioral factors in the assessment which can be extraneous to evaluate. Thus, the process of cognition is considered to influence behavior rather than behavior influencing the level of cognition (Griffin et al, 2003). In general, cognition and its related learning perspectives reject the majority of behaviorist views on the process of learning (Cronin& Mandich, 2004). They highlight that learning goes beyond the stimuli-response process and depends more on the individual’s cognitive processes. As Maria proceeds with the assessment, she will see the significance of the cognition in her students’ performance in class. In conclusion, insights regarding the manner by which individual students create their network of concept relationships can allow Maria to create exercises of lectures that will subscribe to students’ needs. In doing so, the cognition process of the child only has to assimilate information rather than accommodate it. At the same time, if the cognitive methods of students have varies highly, the same insights on concept relationship networks can also be used to reinforce accommodation of knowledge. References Cronin, Anne and Mandich, Mary Beth (2004). Human Development and Performance Throughout the Life Span. New York: Thomson Delmar Learning Gardner, H. (2006). The development and education of the mind. New York: Basic Books. Griffin, C., Holford, J. & Jarvis, P. (2003).   The Theory & Practice of Learning.   London: Kogan Page. Sylwester, R. (2005).   How to explain a brain: An educator’s handbook of brain terms and cognitive process.   Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.