Character education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Character education - Essay Example Character education has been part of educational curriculums since long. Schools have played an essential role in passing on the cultural and ethical values of a society through the generations. It was seen as a moral responsibility of the teachers to involve and impart character education. But trends changes in the second half of the last century and character education completely disappeared from schools. Main reason for this is that teacher’s involvement in character development would infringe the right of the parents. Also the church/state debate added fuel to the argument. Martin Luther King said that â€Å"Intelligence plus character – that is the true goal of education† (Norris et al., 2004). Hence, it becomes the moral responsibility of the teacher to be involved in the character development of the students. And it also makes logical sense as children spend majority of their time in schools interacting with teachers, and hence teachers will have a long lasting impact on the children. Another reason why teachers must take an active part in the development of children character is that there is a decline in the family structure. Due to pressures of the 21st century work environment, majority of the parents are not able to interact with their children as they would desire to. Parents have not been able to share ethical values with the children. This is one of the reasons that youth character has seen a downward trend in the recent years (Ryan, 1993). Therefore it becomes the moral responsibility of the teacher to involve in character development. Research has shown that the learning environment makes an impact and has a positive effect on the social values and in turn the character of a child. That is, students who work in a cooperative learning group develop a character with mutual concern for one another (Johnson et al., 1981). Therefore, teacher is a critical part of the learning environment and hence needs to be actively and consciously

Sun Tzu Emphasizes the Importance of Intelligence, Surprise, and Essay

Sun Tzu Emphasizes the Importance of Intelligence, Surprise, and Deception - Essay Example This paper is a comparative analysis of application of intelligence, surprise and deception within the Iraq and United States military during the period between 1990 and 1998. Before investigating on the use of intelligence, surprise and deception in the two countries, it is important to interrogate the meaning of the three terms in military operations. Intelligence support plays a critical role in determining the success of military operation. According to Pace, military intelligence â€Å"provides crucial insights regarding sensitive opportunities that could be exploited by the military to overcome the targeted enemy† (12). Intelligence enables military commanders to clearly indentify the intended end state and establish when the end state of a particular operation is attained (Pace, 12). Pace argues that visualization of the battle space is one the most important role of intelligence to the military. Visualizing the battle space includes possessing the facts about the physi cal and manmade installations in the areas of military operation. In addition, visualizing requires the knowledge about the most current information about the activities of the enemy forces in that particular space and the future potential of the adversary to function in the region of military interest (14). According to Handel (60), collection of accurate military intelligence requires an in-depth understanding of the enemy, especially the objectives that motivate their actions in the battle field (Sharp, 17). Establishing the objectives of the enemy in war is one of the greatest challenges of collecting military intelligence. These challenges are caused by difficulties in determining and predicting actions and response between the enemy and the offensive force once the process of establishing the intent is initiated. In most situations, well intended actions from the joint forces trigger a reaction from the enemy and this could jeopardize the entire operation prematurely. Betts (8 3) argues that determining the extent of reaction from the enemy requires possession of accurate and timely intelligence that would enable the commanders to determine and plan future friendly actions to extract the intentions of the enemy without raising undue suspicion. Possession of appropriate intelligence enables the force commanders to consider different factors that affect the operation directly or indirectly before deciding on the action for establishing the intentions of the adversary. According to Pace, intelligence plays an important role in the three stages of military operations which include during peace, war and during other operations that do not involve war (36). During peacetime, intelligence assists commanders in purchasing relevant supplies, defend and protect their technological appliances and structuring their organizations to enhance efficiency. In addition, periods of peace provide military commanders with opportunities of designing appropriate training regime ns for the combatants and other servicemen. Moreover, intelligence agencies monitor foreign countries and organizations with objectives of establishing potential threats during peacetime (Pace, 38-40). During military operations other than war intelligence is helpful to military commanders because it enables them to make suitable decisions on which forces to deploy at a particular future period, how and where to deploy, in a