The Character of the Female Gender, as Related in The Glass Menagerie Essay

The Character of the Female Gender, as Related in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams - Essay Example The Wingfield's fire escape takes on the symbolism of one of the main themes of the play, escape. Amanda is a brave but dominant woman, trapped in the past and her youth as a Southern Belle. Laura is trapped by her shyness, fragile sensitivity and disability, her 'reality' centering around her glass collection and old records. Tom is a poet, trapped by a boring job in a shoe factory, and the responsibility of providing for his mother and sister. The other themes explored include illusion, failure and disappointment. Nobody really wins, no dreams come true. Summary of Marxist Analysis: Marxist socialism seeks a classless society where everyone is equal, or has equality of opportunity. Tom Wingfield reflects Williams' circumstances, through which he became socially aware, being surrounded by the poor, the low-paid workers, the unemployed, bohemian writers, poets, artists and radical activists. In Glass Menagerie, when setting Scene One for us, describing the location, Williams displays his socialist, Marxist beliefs, or at the least, his sympathy towards that philosophy. He says: Note how he has told us of the class level involved, and the emotive use of the words 'fundamentally enslaved' in connection with the family and its living conditions. In this respect, he is showing us his disgust that people should have to live this way, and subscribing to the Marxist ideal. Again, there is a connection to socialist values when he has Tom pay his dues to the Union of Merchant Seamen, rather than the electric bill - thus highlighting a belief in the unions and socialism, as opposed to capitalism. In speaking about the impending war, Williams puts into the mouth of Tim Wingfield, some further indication of the belief that people are not getting what they are entitled to out of life. Tom: "Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a darkened room and watches them have them! Yes, until there's a war. That's when adventure becomes available to the masses!....Then the people in the dark room come out of the dark room to have some adventure themselves-...." (Williams, 1936, Scene Six, p. 282) In using the word 'masses' the playwright makes us recall that this terminology is frequently associated with Marxism. As for coming out of the dark, it is symbolic, not just of Tom waking up to what he is being deprived of, but of all the people seemingly oppressed as he is. There is too, a cynical realization that in having 'adventure', those same masses will suffer. The play exposes, through Tom's narration, how that Capitalist dream has collapsed, it is an illusion. Williams is not unsympathetic, but in Tom's escape, is telling us that everybody deserves the opportunity

A Woman Saving the Nation, from the series The Taiheiki Chronicle Essay

A Woman Saving the Nation, from the series The Taiheiki Chronicle - Essay Example That is to mean that the ideas expressed using the art was meant to discuss the culture and political, social, and religious setting of the country. 1 The Japanese customary craftsmanship is very rich as accessible in a few separate structures. A few different mediums of the declaration have been utilized by Japanese specialists to express their thoughts. The Japanese cultural art includes the beautiful artworks, stoneware, the Japanese Sculptures and the most unmistakable structure that include the plan of blooms. That refers to Ikebana and obviously Origami, the work of art identified with collapsing paper. As a result, the art used different forms to express these ideas. 2Some of the most commonly used forms include the use of paintings. A Japanese artist did the piece of work, by the name Yoshitoshi Tsukioka, who lived between 1839 and 1892. The art is believed to have been designed and produced in 1886, and it is available in the form of a woodblock print. The Collection Phoenix Art Museum contains several pieces of these paintings. It is Gift of Susan Julia Ross and Dr. Gary L. Waddington under the order number 2011.118.A. As such; one can access the art using these details. 3 In the extravagant inside of collapsing screens and veneer furniture, the Shogun (military ruler) Tsunayoshi is sleeping soundly. He is longing for his most loved mistress, Oyanagi no Okada who is demonstrated superimposed over the scene and filling the right board. Behind him on the left board his wife Osame holds a knife. The Shogun is ignorant that his courtesans father Yanagisawa, the Lord of Dewa, has been plotting to topple him. His wife has found the scheme and is bravely waiting to murder the courtesans father and after that execute herself, keeping in mind the end goal to spare the country and her spouse.4 The piece of art illustrates the role of women in the fight for freedom, justice, equity, growth, and development in the Japanese culture. It also shows

Measurement of Time Spent Communicating Essay Example for Free

Measurement of Time Spent Communicating Essay The amount of time we spend communicating is outstanding. There have been multiple studies to find the actual amount of our waking lives spent communicating, and the percentage of time we spend in each division of communication. The article, Measurement of Time Spent Communicating, is the result of a communication study of employees of a research and development laboratory. The study was based on two techniques: direct observation, and questionnaires. How much time do people spend communicating at work? How much time do people spend using machines at work? This useful information can help to improve the amount of work done in a certain amount of time. If people spend more time communicating to get a job done, then our communication skills possibly need improvement. The talking people do is related with their work output. The same goes for machinery; if we spend more time in person-machine interaction, improving machinery would be the main advance to improving jobs. People were observed at one instance in time in offices of one person to five people, some at supervisory levels, laboratories, hallways, and conference rooms. The observation data was divided into to groups time spent communicating, and time spent working with equipment. These categories were subdivided in different types of communication activities, including face-to-face communication, telephone communication, reading, and writing, and different types of equipment uses, including lab equipment, office machinery, and an other category. Pre-tests showed the three trained clerks could classify the behavior of the employees reliably. Sampling moments were random and unbiased, only avoiding break times and everyones lunch, and are correspondent to the entire working day. The questionnaires were placed at the desks of all the people in the sampling areas, offices, and laboratories. The questionnaires were pre-tested to make sure the wording was understood, and the ordering of questions didnt change the results. The employees were to answer seven questions all percentages that should add up to 100% of the working week. The questionnaires that were returned and did not add up to between 90% and 110% were disregarded. 4,000 questionnaires were distributed, and 2626, or 66%, were returned and usable. Overall, the common results of the observations and questionnaires were recognizable. The observation method is more accurate, and unbiased, so the main differences in the two sets of data are explained by people underestimating the time they spend communicating face-to-face, and overestimating the time they spend reading and writing. The questionnaire and observed data representing how much time is spent speaking on the telephone, working with lab equipment and office machinery, and other were relatively the same. Another observation is that the amount of time spent communicating depends on how many people are in the office. The fewer people, the more communication went on. This could be due to the fact that many one or two person offices were supervisory level, and therefore had to communicate to employees more often. All offices engaged in face-to-face communication more than in laboratories. Although, time spent working with equipment is only 13%, even though the research study population is a research and development laboratory. This leads us to the conclusion that communication with people, not equipment, is the center of activity for most professionals, administrators, clerks, secretaries and technicians.

An Analysis Of Service Operations

An Analysis Of Service Operations Over the last decade, we saw an exponential growth in Lean and Six Sigma approaches. Recently the combination of Lean with Six Sigma as an improvement approach has captured the attentions of academia and industry. Lean Six Sigma was widely used in manufacturing sectors but can also be used in administration and service areas (Snee and Hoerl, 2004). Companies adopting Lean or Six Sigma have reported an increase in financial performance within a short term (Thomas, Barton et al., 2009), cost reduction (Anchanga 2006), improvement in customer satisfaction and cost saving (Sharma 2003). On the other hand, not all the companies that implement a continuous Improvement programme have been able to capture its entire economic benefits (Cusumano 1994; Sharma 2003). The objective of this essay is to demonstrate the power of Lean Six Sigma in the manufacturing and service sectors of business. Two case studies relating to both the business areas are discussed along with the significant benefits a nd drawbacks to its use in such areas. Review of literature As the name suggests, lean Six Sigma is an integration of lean and Six Sigma philosophies, principles and tools (Sheridan, 2000). Lean Six Sigma makes use of the knowledge, methods and tools resulting from decades of operational improvement research and implementation. Goal of Lean Six Sigma is growth and effectiveness and not just cost-cutting efficiency. According to Bendell (2006), the adoption of lean Six Sigma as a process improvement is yet to be fully established in particular area of academic research. Full potential of lean Six Sigma have not been realised (Smith, 2003).This failure is due to the lack of commitment from management (Cusumano, 1994). Lean focuses on reducing cost through process optimization and also on waste elimination in existing processes. Six Sigma is all about stakeholder expectations and meeting customer requirements. It also improves quality by measuring and eliminating defects. Both these approaches are implemented in isolation (Smith, 2003),leading to conflict of interest and draining of resources due to the creation of lean and six sigma subcultures that is emerged within the organization (Bendell, 2006). According to George (2003), Lean and Six Sigma help companies to deliver products and services at a faster pace without defects at minimum cost. Lean manufacturing focus on process flow and waste while Six Sigma focuses on variation and design. The below figure shows the DMAIC framework on which the Six Sigma projects are built. The five phases of DMAIC are Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. To improve the process speed and efficiency within the project, Lean Methods are used within the DMAIC framework to augment Six Sigma tools. Source: IBM Global Business Services analysis. Six Sigma complements Lean in three different ways (George 2003) by Providing senior management commitment and cultural infrastructure that cannot be generated by Lean initiatives. Having customer at the center of its activity and this is not seen in Lean approach. Reduce variation that cannot be achieved by lean tools and techniques. Lean complements Six Sigma in Four different ways (George 2003) by Non-value added activities are identified. Eliminating the non-value added activities improves and benefits Six Sigma. Process responsiveness and speed is improved. Speed and rapid response is increased with lean tools. Arnheiter and Maleyeff (2005) outlines the benefits when lean and Six Sigma are integrated. Companies use a set of tools that are common to both approaches ie tools like 5 why, Scatter diagram, Histograms, Pareto, Cause and Effect and Poka Yoke (Kumar et al., 2006). Table I shows the key lean implementation steps with the Six Sigma tools that can be used to complete each task. Source: (Pepper and Spedding, 2009). In an organization Six Sigma is implemented only by few specific individuals, whereas lean is used by everyone to identify and eliminate non-value adding activities(Higgins, 2005). Employees have true ownership of the process even at higher-level process analysis stage due to the integration of lean Six Sigma. According to Harrison(2006),Neither lean nor Six Sigma is very effective when implemented in isolation because of their forced needs within the organization. Smith (2003) says that this will result in the creation of two subcultures competing for the same resources. End objective of both the approach is to achieve quality throughout the process. According to Arnheiter and Maleyeff (2005), continuous improvement of process is difficult if the approach is implemented alone. Organizations find it effective if implemented alone but after the initial improvement there is no improvement in the process. In order to avoid this lean approach should combine the use of targeted data to ma ke decisions and also to approach quality in a more scientific way within the system. On the other hand, it is necessary that the Six Sigma adopts a wider system approach, by considering the effects of waste on the system as a whole. These approaches are considered to be ineffective by many people and they feel that the blending of these approaches leads to ineffectiveness and led to some criticism in the literature. Bendell (2006) who has vast experience as both practitioner and as an academician argues that lean Six Sigma for becoming ill-defined philosophies, thus becoming a less effective tool. Bendell feels that it would be beneficial if there is a single approach combining the effectiveness of both the lean and Six Sigma approaches. This emphasizes the fact that consultants have provided a number of consultancy models for lean Six Sigma which is available on the World Wide Web. Methodologies used by these consultants are without any logical explanation and theoretical support or explanation for choosing the techniques. Taking a practitioner view, Spector and West (2006) says that when practitioners adopt lean and Six Sigma involve in many projects that yields insufficient results due to the time required to complete them. According to Mika(2006) both the approaches are not compatible with one another because lean is open to workers and encourages teamwork whereas six sigma is not available to the average worker on the floor. The use of lean tools and techniques identifies important areas that can be leveraged by Six Sigma techniques and also to arrange the information flow to run the system by providing continuous feedback (Pepper and Spedding, 2009). In few literatures, the main concerns when building a new and a complete framework for lean six sigma is that it focuses on process and strategy and that it should strike a balance between complexity and sustainability and finally structured around the type of problem thats encountered and by recognizing the advantages of both these approaches. Findings Lean Six Sigma approach in Healthcare related to service operation and small engineering company of manufacturing sector case is discussed below. Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare(de Koning et al., 2006) Like any other service operation, Healthcare needs to remain cost efficient, competitive and up-to-date. This can be achieved by using Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare sectors. George (2003) describes innovative work on Lean Six Sigma at Stanford Hospital and Clinics. Let us take the case where lean Six Sigma is used by Red Cross Hospital in Netherlands. Worldwide the cost of medical care is increasing at an alarming speed. Unnecessary operational inefficiency leads to increase expenditure in healthcare. In order to improve quality wastefulness has to be measured. Medical service delivery process has led to operational inefficiency. First quality improvement techniques were initiated followed by six Sigma, lean and then lean Six Sigma. In 2002 the Hospital started using Six Sigma and found that this methodology provided solutions to many of the below mentioned problems identified by top management. At times absence of important business case. Absence of Project-tracking system. Failed method for project management and control. Many incomplete projects. Lean Six Sigma projects in healthcare include both the medical as well as the administrative problems. Quality improvement is not only to address defects like medication errors but can be widened to various fields of application. The kind of problems tackled in healthcare are shortening the length of stay in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients Errors related to invoices received from temporary agencies are reduced. Revision of payment terms. Number of patients needing intravenous antibiotics is reduced. Intravenous medications preparation time is shortened. The Red Cross Hospital involvement shows the vital elements of the Lean Six Sigma approach. These are: Organizational infrastructure of Six Sigma applied. Quality improvement deployment focused on each project. Training employees leading to evolving organizational ability for innovation . Selection of projects had a strategic focus. A serious budget cut was imposed on the Red Cross Hospital. This demanded a strict focus on cost reductions while keeping quality on focus. The clinic needs profitability to sustain its operations as the fixed costs cannot control the operations. Lean Six Sigma in a small engineering company (Thomas, 2009) To enhance manufacturing operations, companies use Lean Six Sigma. small engineering company (Thomas, Barton et al. 2009) is a leader in seating systems for automotive and aerospace industries. Manufactured products are supplied to worldwide markets increasing the competition from low cost countries and the need to be responsive to customers led the company to adopt lean. The company preferred to create in-house expertise to process systems development as consultants were ineffective. When the company moved into the high-value markets its profit increased by manufacturing less products, higher quality and the delivery requirements were tight. This lead to the need to use lean Six Sigma to respond effectively to the unpredictable customer demands. The company had the potential to innovate continuously along with the awareness in infrastructure quality and investment. This approach provided the company with a simple structure but an effective one which resulted in the manufacturing operations and product capabilities improvements. Discussion Based on the literature review, the advantages and disadvantages for the above mentioned case studies using Lean Six Sigma is discussed below. Advantages/benefits when introducing lean six sigma Improved Quality When concentrating on the product development and production, the number of defects in the manufactured products is reduced as the problems are identified in the manufacturing process. This results in waste elimination, improving efficiency and increased customer loyalty towards the product. Reduced waste Wastes are eliminated in order to protect the product and the reputation of the organization. Improvement of cash flow Products are made to order thus reducing the inventory and increasing the available cash. Safer working environment Workers and customer safety is considered when using lean Six Sigma within an organization, thus reducing accidents. Customer Expectations Organizations use lean Six Sigma in order to satisfy and to meet the customer demands. Changes a companys culture Manufacturing processes are viewed from different perspectives. Employees at various levels in the process make decisions by relying on data than giving importance to gut feelings. The implementation of lean Six Sigma can be done on a trial and error ie by introducing it within a department before implementing it across the whole organization. Having in-house expertise to process systems development saves cost. The company developed advanced maintenance techniques with fewer breakdowns by using TPM. Products are delivered at the right time. Cycle time is reduced. Complexity in hiring personnel resulting in reduced rework and major cost savings. Starting times of the operation theatre was reduced resulting in further improvement of the process. Maintenance resulted in fewer complained and increase in revenue. Disadvantages/drawbacks when introducing lean Six Sigma Lack of vision affects the LSS implementation. Implement the LSS tools and techniques solely depend on the experts having high skills. Only LSS tools and techniques are used to solve all the problems. Cannot be implemented when timeline expectation is short. Cannot be used when the business is beyond repair. Requires full commitment from top management. Minimum amount of resources is at least required. The effectiveness of few tools and techniques were limited due to the inadequate statistical data. Conclusion It is obvious that the lean thinking and scientific improvement standard of Six Sigma have led to success across industries. When fused together both the approaches become a powerful tool. Lean Six Sigma can be used in all sectors within any industry and does not only relate to manufacturing sector. In this essay we discussed the advantages and disadvantages in using Lean Six Sigma approach. Innovations are necessary in the service delivery process. We also discussed that operational improvement was the main motive for organizations using Lean Six Sigma leading to performance improvements, cost reduction and customer satisfaction. Literature review also highlighted the possible ways of using both the approach. For a company to have employees trained is an added benefit. Using Lean Six Sigma companies should focus on doing better things than just to do things better.

Free Hamlet Essays: Hamlet’s Deceit :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Hamlet’s Deceit In the play hamlet we see hamlet, a man stuck in a deceitful world. The spies, everybody but Hamlet, need deceit and treachery to live, and without it they would perish. Polonius, perhaps the most underhanded member of the play lives and dies while spying, literally. Other characters spy also to better themselves to certain individual to advance their social status. We see Hamlet, the one honest man left in the bunch, spying his one time to save his very own life. The perceptiveness of Hamlet is short-lived as are all actions in this play save the killing. "That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain"(I, v, l.108) This is to be my theme, something that Hamlet discovered and lived by for many a year and scene. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be, far loan oft loses both itself a friend"(I, iii, l.75-76). Experience Polonius has in both fields, for he represents the loathing, scheming men of the world in Hamlet. Polonius is an underhanded man in the play. We see this fat Lord chamberlain play goofy and somewhat stupid during his talks with Hamlet. We know that when his son Laertes is sent to France, Polonius send a spy to follow him and to make sure he is not doing any wrong. Polonius also likes to keep tabs on everyone including his daughter Ophelia, who is expected to report her relations with the lord Hamlet to her father. Later in the play, Ophelia lets Polonius and Claudius spy on Hamlet and herself conversing. "Her father and myself†¦, seeing unseen, we may from encounter frankly judge†¦ if’t be th’affliction of his love or no that thus he suffers for" (III, i, l.32-37). Polonius, known for his deceit is the only real symbol of it, and it is symbolic when haml et kills him, almost like killing the evil which plagued the land in his natural form, for Polonius was unceremoniously spying on Hamlet and his mother from behind a curtain. Other characters in Hamlet are also deceitful. Laertes, has poison, from where did he get it? Ophelia as said earlier, serves as a medium for Claudius and Polonius to tap into hamlet’s thoughts. The queen is even a part of it one time. Even without the spying however, she is intertwined in guilt, marrying the brother and killer of her husband on the day of his funeral; what shame (unfortunately only experienced by Hamlet!).

Rap is Crap Essay examples -- essays research papers

Rap is Crap â€Å"She ain’t nuttin but a hoochie mama†¦Smackin’ on your lips, put your hands on your hips†¦She ain’t nuttin but a hoochie mama†¦Oh I love those big brown eyes and the way you shake your thighs, acting like you’re so damn cute...† Rap music with lyrics like this play on the radio and in home stereos every day. Rap music pounds messages of sex and violence into the minds of young adults leaving behind their sexist and repetitive influential messages. Music has a very powerful influence on our emotions, moods, and behavior. Rap music influences teenagers negatively by increasing violent attitudes and promoting sexual aggression against women. Very few people would argue the power of music. Mothers use it to rock their babies to sleep. Patriotic hymns can be used at rallies to evoke strong emotions of nationalism. Ballads have been used to incite rebellion. Some governments have viewed music so powerful that they ban it. In white dominated South Africa, centers of African music were destroyed and western music was declared forbidden in China during the Cultural Revolution. Is music powerful enough to incite antisocial and violent behavior? According Johnson, Jackson and Gatto’s study on the deleterious effects of exposure to rap music, subjects in the violent exposure conditions (rap music) expressed greater acceptance of violence. Subjects in the violent exposure condition also reported a higher probability that they would engage in violence (Johnson). Music plays an i...

Athletics and the Effect on Academics Essay

The purpose of this research proposal is to determine if extracurricular activities such as sports has a positive or negative affect on junior high student’s academic achievement. I will discuss past research that has been conducted and their results as well articles written on the topic. I will also discuss my research method and how it will be implemented in order to see how previous research compares to my school. This research will be conducted with students in the 6th through the 8th grade. As a teacher and a coach I have wondered if there is any correlation between students academic success while they were part of a sports program. I know that as a former student-athlete in junior high and high school I was motivated to maintain a certain grade level in order to participate in any type of sport. I recently attended my son’s parent meeting for his freshman basketball team and learned that according to IHSA rules a student can fail two classes and still participate in their sport. That is a topic of discussion for another time but it did spark my curiosity to see if my students at the junior high level worked harder to stay eligible during their sport season and not so hard during their off –season. It should be stated that at my school a student has to maintain a 70% to participate and this is checked on a weekly basis. It would seem that ever since sports has become part of our schools environment there has been a debate about the effects of athletic participation on academic achievement. I believe now more than ever it has become a more relevant issue because of the budget restraints in our country’s schools. The school boards often find it easy to cut athletic programs because they do not see the value it has in the academic arena. It is important for our administrators to know these effects of athletics on academics before they would decide to cut or retain these athletic programs. This particular research proposal would focus on junior high students that are both male and female at J. W. Eater in Rantoul Illinois. Our demographics are about evenly split between both Caucasian and African American students, the African American student being slight higher, with a smaller percent of Hispanics. It should also be noted that there are a high number, close to 80%, of these students whose families fall below the poverty line; therefore there is a high number of kids that are on the free or reduced lunch plan. In addition to the research that will be conducted at Eater Junior High there will also be some information from other articles and studies that have been done in research journals. I feel these articles and studies will provide a clearer picture as to the positive effect of athletic participation and academic achievement. I found an article that supports the theory that athletic participation can help at-risk students and other students who have academic problems. Since we have several at-risk students because of our demographics in Rantoul this article seem to relate. In this article it states that educators believe that athletic participation reduces the chance of school dropout by approximately forty percent. It argues that extracurricular participation decreases this chance because it gives those at-risk students a chance to create positive connections to the school system. Involvement in these activities was perceived by educators to support these at-risk students by maintaining, enhancing and strengthening the student to school connection (Holloway, J. H. 2000). Although we don’t have the dropout problem as say our high school, athletics is a connection to the next level of education and can provide motivation to stay in school. A research article I found that involves using a questionnaire, as I intend to use with my research proposal, measures academic achievement between athletes and non-athletes on the 8th grade level (Stegman, M. & Stephens, L. 2000). Both the athletes and the non-athletes were invited to participate and each was provided with a questionnaire. Both groups also gave the researchers permission to view their academic scores. They found that the results showed the students who participated in sports had the higher academic scores versus those who chose not to participate in sports. Although the sample size wasn’t that large the results tend to lean in favor of athletics enforcing academics. Another case I found was interesting in that it examined over 25,000 students along with their teachers and parents (Jordan, W. 1999). The research’s author, Will Jordan, shows how the results point out that African American students have a higher rate of academic achievement as a whole when they are in involved in extracurricular activities such as sports. The only draw back to this research is that it only involves African Americans, however Mr.  Jordon does note that previous research did show similar results for other races that were researched. The majority of its data is received from the National Educational Longitudinal Study, and this is used to measure the data against a system that is already in place to decide how effective extracurricular activities are to a student’s academic success. Another case that was conducted by Thomas Herbert centers on the study of 8 different student athletes that had been identified as gifted in junior high for 120 days (Herbert, T. 1995). As my own son was in the gifted program this was also an interesting study. By observing and using questionnaires, and looking at their academic scores, the conclusion Mr. Herbert came to was that they all had a strong academic record along with positive self-esteem. Mr. Herbert’s rationale is that they gained these positive attributes through their involvement in playing competitive sports. Just like in Mr. Jordon’s research, Mr. Herbert’s research also had limitations. In this case these students were from the inner city, therefore it would not be an accurate example of society as a whole or in comparison to J.  W. Eater. These are three research cases that weigh in favor of athletics helping promote academics. However in order to be able to conduct a research proposal that is fair you have to look at both sides and there are some articles that shows some negative correlations between academics and sports. One such article was written by Mr. Glenn Cook that is based on his prior experiences working with student athletes. Mr. Cook suggests that today’s society has placed more emphasis on athletics than they do academics (Cook, G. 2003). He feels because of this shift, students are not having the academic success they would otherwise had if athletics wasn’t involved. He feel that the students are not being pushed to achieve the most from their academics because they are being given a â€Å"pass† so to speak because of the time involved with their particular sport. A Mr. William Bainbridge writes a similar article taking the stance that athletics is hindering the academic part of school (Bainbridge, W. 2004). His point of view is that the culture is so enamored with the likes of athletes such as Kobe Bryant or Dwight Howard who skip college and go straight to the NBA. He feels this is a deterrent for the kid who wants to go to college and graduate. Although I see the points in both Mr. Cook and Mr. Bainbridge opinions, they are just that, an opinion. An actual research article that helps support their opinion was conducted by Ms. Leah Bucknavage and a Mr. Frank Worrell where their research shows a negative correlation between athletics and academics (Bucknavage, L. & Worrell, F. 2005). The research indicated that some students who participated in an intramural sport actually showed a decline in academic achievement. It should be noted that a limitation to this research is that it is based on an intramural sport as opposed to a regular sports team that requires tryouts in order to make the team and participate which requires more time and commitment. Within the majority of research I found supporting the positive effects between athletics and academics, it could easily be argued that athletics helps promote academic achievement in students. Through my research proposal I would hope to find that my results held with the status quo. In my research proposal I will be using student questionnaires as this seems to a popular method used by other researcher into this topic. I would also be looking at the student’s grades in all subject areas pre and post their participation in their sport, along with their ISAT scores from when the started participating as early as the 6th grade through their 8th grade career. I would want to see, at the minimum, that their grades were passing and consistent over this period of time. I plan on looking at J. W. Eater junior high on a grade-by-grade level. The esearch will be done in the form of questionnaires for each grade that the students will have to fill out themselves. The survey instrument used in this research will be designed to determine whether or not the activities that junior high students choose have an effect on their academic achievement and will be based on a four point Likert-scale, with 1 meaning â€Å"I agree;† 2 meaning â€Å"I somewhat agree;† 3 meaning â€Å"I somewhat disagree;† and 4 meaning, â€Å"I disagree;†. A personal data sheet that also request demographic data will be included along with the survey. These demographic answers will be reported in percentages and charts. The questions in the non-demographic part of the survey will generally be about their attitudes towards school and learning in general. They will also be asked if they currently play, have played or plan on playing a sport in junior high. The questionnaire will see if there is a correlation between participating in athletics and their expectation of themselves. Because the questionnaire will have both convergent and divergent questions I will be able to get a better result as to the correlation of athletic participation and the self-expectations. Their current grades and ISAT scores will also be recorded. The goal is to compare the scores, both pre and post, and questionnaire results with those of the non-extracurricular participant and see if the data supports the hypothesis that athletics promotes academics. As a potential future administrator this is information that I would like to have access to in my potential school in order to determine the value of sports or extracurricular activities. Although I feel there is a positive correlation between sports and academics, I have to put the educational part of school first and foremost. If I were to see that the academic part of my students schooling is being affected by extracurricular activities then I would have to make adjustment to those activities. This could be done in cutting an activity altogether or creating other opportunities to help the student-athlete be successful. I think this project has reinforced my belief that if set up properly within the school environment, then there is a positive correlation between extracurricular activities and academics. I think its up to each administrator to do what is in the best interest for his or her school and students.