Cause and Effect Essay - Christianity Causes Divorce -- Expository Cau

Cause and Effect Essay - Christianity Causes Divorce â€Å"Bible Belt Couples ‘Put Asunder’ More,† the New York Times proclaimed on May 21 of this year: â€Å"The divorce rate in many parts of the Bible Belt is roughly 50% above the national average.† So much for the notion that secularism is to blame for the decline of traditional families, among other frequently lamented social ills. Apparently, in a least a few states, the divorce rate correlates to an excess of piety, not the absence of it. What do we make of this amusing correlation? I doubt that religiosity directly causes divorce, but in some cases it may cause marriage, by condemning premarital sex and cohabitation as sinful; and marriage, of course, is the one indisputable cause of divorce. Marry in haste; divorce when you come to your senses. â€Å"I had this vision that this is just what people do; Get married, have kids and Christ comes back,† one Oklahoma divorcee told the New York Times. She remarried, but a great many Oklahomans apparently prefer living in sin. (Religion may not cause marriage after all.) According to the Times, the number of unmarried cohabitating couples in Oklahoma increased 97 percent in the past ten years. It increased 125 percent in Arkansas and 123 percent in Tennessee. The average national increase in unmarried couples for the same period was 72 percent. Statistics like these are deeply troubling to God-fearing social conservatives like Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who declared a â€Å"marital emergency† in his state; and Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, who has initiated a multimillion dollar campaign to strengthen marriage by sending publicly funded â€Å"marriage ambassadors† to talk shows and public schools and providing premarital education. ... ...tates, when the Supreme Court held that Mormons could be prosecuted for entering into polygamous marriages. Thus, Judeo-Christian notions of marriage are incorporated into law while historic Mormon beliefs about marriage are criminalized. As Utah polygamist Tom Green recently learned, laws against multiple spouses are still liable to be enforced. Green, who boasted five wives and an estimated twenty-five to thirty children, was convicted of four counts of bigamy (and one count of nonsupport). He was not a particularly sympathetic defendant: one of his wives was only fourteen when he married her, and he could not support all the children he promiscuously fathered. So, it’s probably not fair to say he was prosecuted because of his religious beliefs, but he was prosecuted in spite of them. He is not a particularly virtuous man, but he is, after all, a religious one.

Identify Four Possible Consequences Essay

1. Identify four possible consequences of inadequate training or training that does not meet an organisation’s needs or requirements. Answers might include but are not limited to: Leads to people feeling ill-equipped to do their jobs, leading to stress Reduced productivity Decreased flexibility/ adaptability to workplace demands Failure to enhance people’s skills Can lead to a failure to meet statutory requirements relating to providing a safe and healthy working environment Reduced motivation Reduced satisfaction Failure to offer career development Increased employee turnover 2. Carry out your own TNA identifying the learning and development needs you could use to be able to do your current job more successfully. If you are not currently employed, carry out a TNA that relates to the skills and knowledge you will need in a job that you hope to secure in the future. There is no definitive response to this activity; however, participants should demonstrate an understanding that a TNA is used to clearly identify the requirements of a job, the current capabilities of participants and whether there are any gaps between the two. 3. Training needs should be considered at five levels. State what these levels are and give an example for each. Identifying learning needs must be done at five levels: 1. Compliance and statutory-all employees must adhere to national privacy principles, therefore they need to be trained on what these principles are what they mean for the business. 2. Business strategies and goals-the vision of the organisation is to become the largest provider of personalised stationery, therefore training might be needed in sales and marketing. 3. Departmental and team-the accounts team might need training on a new finance IT package in order to efficiently handle the higher volume of invoices. 4.  Job roles-the specific learning needs of each job or group of jobs. All the employees responsible for creating new stationery designs are likely to need training on the market segments that are being actively targeted by the sales team. 5. Individual-the competencies that each person must hold in order to perform their job effectively. The person responsible for maintaining the organisation’s website might require training on the new look of the website propose d by the marketing team. Activity 2 1. Why is employee consultation a necessary process when determining learning needs and addressing change? Consultation enables you to: Identify employee needs and expectations Identify real skills gaps Gather a range of ideas and suggestions regarding training If employees are consulted they are more likely to be motivated and commit to training. 2. What are the likely repercussions if employees are not consulted and involved in the design, development and targeting of training or learning opportunities? Employees who are not consulted will possibly resist training-not be happy about involvement. So they might not attend, or might sabotage the training. The training will not necessarily be correctly targeted. Activity 3 1. Evaluating competencies and continually improving one’s skills is the responsibility of everyone in an organisation. Comment on this statement. If organisations are to be learning organisations they need everybody to take a proactive stance in learning, growing and improving. 2. What advantages are there when an individual self-evaluates their competence and identifies what is needed to learn, grow and improve knowledge and skills? When an individual is involved in the process of examining their current performance against set standards they are becoming actively involved and are therefore taking ownership for continual improvement. When a person is actively engaged in identifying the issues they are more likely to positively embrace  solutions to improve the performance. 3. Technical skills can be taught, but attitude implies habits and habits are hard to change. What do you think this means? When we start work, or learn new tasks we find it easier to learn new competencies. We do not have to unlearn anything in order to develop the new skills. However, if we have been doing a task a certain way for a period of time, our method of approaching the tasks becomes habitual. Thus, if we need to make changes we actually have to unlearn the current habits and develop new ones. We all know that habitual behaviours are difficult to change (think, for instance, about how hard it is for people to give up smoking.) Habitual behaviours are those behaviours with which we are comfortable. We do not want to move out of our comfort zones to change our habits. Some people, however, demonstrate the attitude that they are happy to make changes or improvements as needed. They will take advantage of opportunities to improve, because they realise that it is important to do so. It is much harder to teach someone to develop this kind of attitude than tit is to teach someone, for instance, how to operate a machine. 4. How do you think attitude assessment does or should impact on an organisation’s performance evaluations, its recruitment and selection processes and on any training programs that might be implemented? High-performing organisations focus heavily, in their recruitment and selection procedures, on attitude assessment. Attitude is the component of employee behaviour that indicates motivation-support for organisational goals, potential for active involvement I improvement processes, and cooperation when required, Employees who: Do not want to learn Whose attitude is that they are simply there to earn a wage Who are afraid and resistant to change Or who simply do not care Can have destructive effects on the organisation-it’s culture and it’s productivity. They can affect the motivation and input of other employees. Thus employee attitude-willingness to participate, to be involved and to  self-monitor and self-manage should comprise integral parts of all evaluations-for recruitment, performance evaluation and as regards selection for training opportunities. Training truly will be wasted if employees who do not wish to learn, are not interested or for whatever reason do not want to be there, are coerced into attending training. Training will only be effective if the people who participate in it want to learn and to develop new skills and can see a purpose for learning-ie they have the right attitude. Activity 4 1. Comment on this statement: Effective managers do not wait for a defined time to gather feedback on their team members’ performance; they do it continually using formal and informal methods and relevant sources to build-up a complete picture of competence of the team as a whole and for each member of that team. Generally, this statement is true. Feedback that is gathered continuously provides a more complete picture of competence than feedback gathered in snapshots, as it provides a holistic picture encompassing differing situations and contingencies. A good manager is able to combine formal feedback mechanisms, such as production results together with informal methods such as comments made by team members. 2. You are the senior coach of the Windemere Wombats A Grade basketball team. You have been concerned lately that the team, although still winning matches, are not performing as well as they could be. You feel that they have the capability to win convincingly, but instead some players are making silly mistakes that are costing the team important points. You are unsure what is causing the performance issue and decide to pay closer attention in order to get to the bottom of it. What feedback processes could you use to uncover the problem? The coach could use feedback techniques such as: Examine play statistics Video the games and play them back to analyse them Have a team discussion where everybody is encouraged to provide feedback Hold one-on-one meetings with each player, assistant coaches and other administration employees Activity 5 1 Standards are set by industries, organisations and accrediting bodies. 2 Having clearly defined standards enables organisations and trainees to understand what is required and to structure training programs to ensure that workers gain the required competencies. 3. There are no definitive responses for this activity; howerver, participants should demonstrate an undersanding that: A goal is the expression of what is to be achieved as aresult of completing learning and development activities associated with the skill. Goals help specify the detail of what is to be achieved. Examples include: – provide better feedback to my employees – effectively chair monthly committee meetings – format complex reports better Each skill can have one or more learning objectives. Objectives contain a hight level of detail and shouuld be specific, measurable, and attainable. Examples include : – Provide better feedback to my employees: – provide feedback within 24 hours – provide feedback that results in improved employee performance – Effectively chair monthly committee meeting: – keep meetings to allocated timeframe – prevent domination of discussion by one or two people – Format complex reports: – use tables with 100% accuracy – use columns with 100% accuracy – use numbering with 100% accuracy 4. Competency list should be a comprehensive list of the steps required and the level to which they must be performed. For example, place one level scoop of washing powder into the middle compartment of the washing machine dispenser. Activities selected for inclusion in the learning plan should reflect the prior knowledge of the learner, the nature of the task and the most appropriate method. For examle, doing the laundry could be taught  through demonstration and verbal instruction. 5. Consultation with the employees and conducting training needs assessments. 6 Formal training can include : external courses, internal workshops, e-learning programs. Informal training can include reading, mentoring, coaching. Activity 7 1 Coaching is usually more task specific than mentoring. Coaches focus on helping and guiding development in a particular competency or area of growth. They are usually chosen for their technical expertise. Mentors, on the other hand, play a guiding or advisory role that is often less defined by competency boundaries. Mentoring often encompasses changes in thinking, attitudinal shifts and behavioural changes. 2 Learning opportunities can include, but are not limited to : – team building actibities – counselling of the players with the tension between them – strategy meeting to explain why working the ball in closer is desirable followed by a practice session to reinforce the theory – drill training on bounce passes 3 a. Is a critical response. b. Offers a positibe method of improving. Therefore b is the most helpful form of feedback. 4 There are no definitive responses for this activity; howerver, participants should demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the feedback hamburger. The feedback should start with something positive (howerver minor) and end with something positive/ constructive; acknowledging the things the learner has done correctly. Corrections that need to be made should be sandwiched in the middle. Activity 9 1 There is no definitive response for this activity; however, participants should demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the learning material. Activity10 2 There is no definitive answer for this activity; however, the participant’s response will need to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the learning material. Answers will be specific to the participant. Activity 11 1 The example will be specific to the participant but must retain the integrity of the model. 2 The example will be specific to the participant but must retain the integrity of the model. 3 Additional support could include but is not limited to: – senior executives in head office: – poster reinforcing the customer centric culture in board room – customer centric statistics linked to business profitability placed on board meeting as a standard agenda – store management: – reinforcement training sessions at monthly staff meetings – additional training in the importance of role modelling – frontline sales staff: – reminder cards with phrases to use pinned up near the tills – poster reinforcing the customer centric culture in the stock room – role modelling by store and head office management

Gender Stereotypes Essay

What are gender stereotypes? They are â€Å"simplistic generalizations about the gender attributes, differences, and roles of individuals and/or groups. Stereotypes can be positive or negative, but they rarely communicate accurate information about others. When people automatically apply gender assumptions to others regardless of evidence to the contrary, they are perpetuating gender stereotyping. Many people recognize the dangers of gender stereotyping, yet continue to make these types of generalizations. † You probably hear a gender stereotype on a daily basis but probably don’t realize it because it’s so common and casual now for people to just through everyone into a category and just assume they all are the same. Which is quite sad to me. You shouldn’t be judged and characterized based on your gender. Just because one female or male does something everyone in their gender should be assumed does it to? NO. Some examples of gender stereotypes are â€Å"cooking and cleaning are a women’s job† â€Å"woman can’t drive or park for anything† â€Å"all men are pigs†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ you get the point it’s a group of people (usually either women or men) that are grouped into a title that’s so bias! Ugh I get so mad even talking about it I hate stereotypes! THE IGNORANCE†¦ I’m going to be watching ‘The suite life of Zack and Cody’ on Disney Channel to get a good grasp of how often gender stereotyping is incorporated into our everyday television shows but goes unnoticed. I watch this show often, but never with the intention of it being stereotypical in any way. So today as I think about it if the characters were stereotyped, they would all be bias to one another’s gender. Girls would be the breadwinner’s, caregivers, nurturers, smarter, stay at home mothers. Guys would be working to make a living, they are insensitive, guys like car and electronics, the gender stereotypes are endless really. They can be basically anything and everything depending on how they are perceived and by WHO they are perceived. Sometimes they depend on what someone has gone through in life and based off that they gender stereotype. As I watch I notice that the mother of Phineas and Ferb is a stay at home mother, she does everything there is needed to be done at home. Takes care of the kids and their problems, grocery shops, cleans, cooks, etc. The father is the breadwinner and is the only one who is bringing in the income to support the family. It’s almost a typical old school American family. They have 3 children, 2 boys, 1 girl. Obviously Phineas and Ferb are the two young boys and Candice is their older sister. The whole show is about their sister always trying to get them (Phineas and Ferb) in trouble with their parents. I guess that’s the typical stereotypical sibling relationship always fighting for attention over the parents and to make one bad over the other and make one another more favorable than the other. I didn’t really realize it at first but then when I thought about my own relationship with my siblings it was quite comparable we always try and nag on each other and get one another in trouble. Phineas and Ferb are always coming up with new inventions, playing with electronics computers and inventing unique things. Just doing things most boys do in the stereotypical way. While, their sister Candice is always going to the mall, hanging out gossiping with her girlfriends, always on the phone, constantly nagging on them, obsessed with boys. The show is very stereotypical now that I think about it. It’s the classical guy/girl gender stereotypes. Candice is the girly girl who likes to gossip and shop and get her brothers in trouble while Phineas and Ferb are busy playing with gadgets of all sorts, not ever worried about Candice or what she’s doing, really involved with electronics and coming up with new inventions and having fun in their own little gadget-world you could say. A lot of commercials that come on and play in the mornings when all the kids programs are on are SUPER stereotypical. For girls they advertise Barbie dolls of all sorts, toys for girls such as cool, unique hair designing tools, kitchen accessories that include fake ovens and what not to play in. Which is stereotypical cause they say mothers should cook and clean and then here they are starting kids off at a young age throwing them under such a stereotype. They have commercials advertising water guns, monster trucks, building tools and what not for the boys. After watching this show that I always watch but with the objective of stereotyping as I watched in my head I noticed so much more than I ever did. It’s really sad that so many shows have gender stereotyping in them that goes unnoticed. It really actually (and excuse my language) pisses me off. That people interpret these things in television shows, their guiding the younger generation already in the wrong direction making them think that girls â€Å"do this† and guys â€Å"do this† and having them think basically in a box. I noticed that the show has the very typical stereotypes. Like I mentioned above. I can honestly say my thoughts have changed about this show and are different from what I thought before I had this objective in mind.