Odysseus And His Crew Were Just Leaving The Land Of The Dead On Their

Odysseus and his crew were just leaving the Land of the Dead on their way to Kirke's island to bury Elpenor as Dawn's finger tips of rose slowly crept over the morning sky. Odysseus was telling his men the stories and prophesies he had just learned when the sky started to darken. A storm was upon them. The wind started to pick up as waves crashed harder and harder against the side of the boat until finally the men no longer could grip the oars and they lost control. All they could do was pray to the Gods for mercy and hang on for their lives. Suddenly, as quickly as the storm arrived it left. The skies lightened, the seas calmed, and the winds stopped. The men stood up and looked around wondering where they were. Finally, one of the men spotted land not too far away. As they neared the island, it seemed perfect. It was like paradise. There was lush vegetation, numerous trees, and plenty of animals. The closer they got the better it looked. What Odysseus and his men didn't know was that it was the island of Arachnia, goddess of spiders. She put many spiders on her island that wove giant invisible webs to trap any intruders. The men circled the island looking for a space to land. It didn't take them long. They quickly landed and sent out a scouting group. The others started to inspect the damage to the boat from the storm. The group thought there would be no dangers, as the island seemed so perfect. How wrong they were. Soon after they were out of sight of the boat one of the men was trapped in a giant spider web. The more he squirmed the more stuck he got. The others had no idea what was going on. It looked like he was insane. He appeared to be floating since his legs were so entangled they no longer touched the ground. The others, out of fear, ra n swiftly back to the ship. Odysseus, great conqueror, asked, "Where is the fifth man I sent out with you?" The leader answered, "We don't know what happened to him. As if by magic, he just started floating in the air. He then started frantically squirming and yelling. ?Get me out, I'm stuck!' We tried to cut him loose from whatever he thought he was stuck on, but our swords merely made a loud noise as if we had struck the metal of a shield, yet we saw nothing but the land ahead." "Hmm. . .," Odysseus thought, "I shall go with two of you and two of my strongest men. We shall go to him and try to find out what happened. You two, you shall come with me and these two who have already been, Nausicaa, I leave you in charge!" "Yes, sir!" Nausicaa gladly accepted. Odysseus and his group wandered for hours trying to find the crew member. Soon night fell, and the men decided to rest. As the rest of the men slept, Odysseus lay awake. Hermes came to warn him of Arachnia's spider webs. "Odysseus," Hermes called, "come with me and I shall tell you how to conquer the secrets of the island and rescue your lost man." "Continue . . .," Odysseus replied interestedly. "Well, you have landed on the island of Arachnia, goddess of spiders. She has made this island appear to be perfect, but there is one danger. On the island, she put spiders that weave invisible webs as strong as metal and very sticky. This is what happened to that man of yours. Now, there is only one way to prevent getting stuck in her webs." "Ho do I prevent my men and me from getting stuck?" Odysseus asked. "You must rub aloe all over yourselves," Hermes replied. "Can we put it on our swords to cut down the webs?' "If you could, it wouldn't help, because the webs are as strong as metal. Instead use my sword. It can cut through anything," Hermes answered. "If there are these giant spider's webs, the spiders must be gigantic to weave webs that big." "I was getting to that. They are huge spiders, but they are not what you should worry about. They merely

Child Abuse Essay

Child Abuse Essay Free Online Research Papers The definition of child abuse can vary greatly. Some view abuse as an actual serious injury sustained to a child. While others, have a broader definition of the intent to harm the child, physically or verbally. Alfred Kadushin and Judith Martin summarize child abuse as; physical abuse, malnourishment, denial of essential medical care, failure to attend school regularly, exploitation or overwork, sexual abuse, exposure to unwholesome or demoralizing circumstances, and in some cases emotional abuse and neglect involving denial of the normal experiences that permit a child to feel loved, wanted, secure, and worthy. In the late 1960’s all states adopted child-abuse and neglect-reporting laws. These laws require professionals to report suspected child abuse cases to the local police department and the county welfare department. Through this law professionals are granted civil and criminal immunity but there are also specific penalties for failure to report. It is hard to get accurate data on the true severity of child abuse for two reasons; the failure of citizens and professionals to report suspected cases and the reluctance of abused children to talk. It is common for children that are abused believe their punishment is deserved and in turn develop negative self-images. George C. Curtis has brought about evidence stating many abused children may â€Å"become tomorrow’s murderers and perpetrators of other crimes of violence.† A large number of rapist, murderers, robbers, and spouse abusers were child abuse victims when they were younger. Children of abuse are also high risk to be runaways, which can lead them to other types of crime, such as shoplifting, theft, or prostitution. The state is ultimately a parent to all children under the concept of parens patriae. If the natural parents neglect, abuse, or exploit a child, the state has the legal right or responsibility to intervene. Protective services, which include the profession of social work, is defined as â€Å"a specialized casework service to neglected, abused, exploited or rejected children.† In colonial days, children were though of as chattel, an item of personal property. Parents would sell a child, exploit his or her labor, offer the child as a sacrifice them or even kill the child at birth. Eventually in the era of industrialization children were considered to have rights. In the early 20th century, child labor laws were finally enacted, prohibiting parents from exploiting the labor of their children. Protective services had two focuses: a law enforcement approach and a rehabilitation approach. The law enforcement focus emphasized punishment for the abusive or neglectful parents. While, the rehabilitation approach, generally taken by protective services, emphasized the importance of helping the parents and keeping the family together rather than disrupting it. A federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, passed in January 1974, provide direct assistance to states to help them develop child abuse and child neglect programs. Although professionals are mandated to report abuse most complaints are filed by neighbors, relatives, or family friends. A complaint is a report of a possible neglect or abuse situation that needs exploration. Sometime a person that makes a complaint may feel guilty and need reassurance that they are performing a very useful function that is necessary to protect children. Complaints can be made anonymous and the identity of the complainant is never revealed to the family the report is made against. All complaints are investigated by the protective service. Each agency handles this differently. Some start with a phone call, others prefer an unannounced visit, which has the advantage of allowing the social worker to view the home environment in its day-to-day appearance. The social worker lets the family know there has been a complaint filed and there is a concern of a potential danger to the child in the home. If a potential danger is found it is the social workers job to be helpful to both the parents and the children. The social worker attempts to obtain an objective and accurate description of the situation. During the evaluation the social worker almost always attempts to see the child who has allegedly been endangered. If abuse exists, the objective is to tell the parents that the focus of protective services is to prevent further neglect or abuse and to alleviate the factors that are now a danger to the child. If there is no evidence of neglect or abuse the case may be closed after the initial interview. Services can be continued fro years for those families with serious problems. In some cases, when the child is clearly in danger, or the parents refuse to make changes essential for the long-term well-being of the child, the child is removed from the home. If this happens the social worker will seek the parents’ voluntary consent. If consent is not received a petition is made to the court requesting that the child receive protection. After the petition is filed, a preliminary hearing is scheduled within a few weeks. The social worker must support the petition with documented facts. Protective services cannot withdraw from the situation if it finds that the parents are uncooperative or resistant. Because protective services is involuntary, and because provisions of the service are based in an â€Å"outside† complaint, the recipients are likely to view the services as an invasion of privacy. Although the focus of protective services theoretically is rehabilitative and nonpunitive, protective service clients generally view services as punitive and investigatory. In working with parents who neglect or abuse their children, the social worker must show respect for the parents as people while in no way conveying acceptance if their mistreatment. The social worker need to convey empathy with their situation, be warm, and yet be firm about the need for the positive changes. The protective service worker must be prepared to perform a variety of roles: teacher, enabler, advisor, coordinator of treatment, intervener, supporter, confidante, and expediter. They need to be focused on constantly identifying concrete needs, selecting intervening approaches and providing specific services. A variety of treatment resources are used in attempting to make the needed changes. Crisis nurseries, extended day-care centers, and emergency foster homes provide short-term shelter to relieve potentially damaging crisis situation. Parent effectiveness train programs, group therapy, and family life education programs sometimes are useful on curbing the abuse or neglect. Earlier in American history, the law guarded the rights if parents but gave little attention to the rights if children. But defining and protecting the rights of children has received national attention, in recent years. The balance between the rights between parents and children varies from community to community. Research Papers on Child Abuse EssayThe Relationship Between Delinquency and Drug UseInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married MalesThe Effects of Illegal ImmigrationStandardized Testing19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraGenetic EngineeringHip-Hop is ArtThe Project Managment Office SystemQuebec and CanadaThe Fifth Horseman

Organisations & Behaviour Learning Organisations Essay

Organisations & Behaviour Learning Organisations - Essay Example A learning organisation intentionally designs the structures and strategies in order to enhance and maximise the learning of its employees. (Dodgson, 1993) With the changing environment of business and advancing technology the notion of the Learning organisations has gained much more importance. Learning has become an important characteristic of an organisation in order to compete in the global business. Learning is a volatile and dynamic concept through which the process of updating in an organisation takes place. With the growing size of the corporations and continuous innovations in the field of technology the individual learning has transformed to the notion of the organisational learning. The notion of learning plays an important part in the progress of an individual just like that the learning on the organisational level plays an important part in the growth of an organisation. The organisational group of people can define the organisational learning as the sum of the learning activities of the individual, which takes the shape of combined effort. (Dodgson, 1993; Fiol & Lyles, 1985). An organisational learning program should be designed in the way that it is not lost when the members of the organisation leave the organisation. ... ive environment of the business in today's high pace changing business environment enhancing the learning capabilities of business is the solution of half of the problems. (Prahalad & Hamel, 1994). Equally important is the creation of an unlearning organisation which essentially means that the organisation must forget some of its past. Thus, learning occurs amidst such conflicting factors (Dodgson, 1993). Most of the leading companies of the world like Shell were among the first to embrace the notion of learning. In Shell Arie de Geus described learning as the only strategy to compete effectively. Hence learning organisation can be defined as "The essence of organisational learning is the organisation's ability to use the amazing mental capacity of all its members to create the kind of processes that will improve its own" (Dixon, 1994) "A Learning Company is an organisation that facilitates the learning of all its members and continually transforms itself" (Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 1991) "Organisations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together" (Peter Senge, 1990) The following are the important characteristics of the learning organisations: Learning organisations adopts the external environments. They are flexible and continue the process of change. Depicts the combination of individual and collective learning. Keeps on learning with the outcomes. Learning can be done in two ways. 1) Single loop 2) Double loop In single loop learning people learn in a way prescribed to them by the organisation. In double loop learning people, people not only learn in a