The toll of disruptions

Author(s):  
Peggy D. Bennett

“This job is driving me crazy . . . literally!” Spoken by a frenzied educator, these words testify to the many disruptions that hap­pen in schools. The fast pace of our myriad daily experiences can cause our thoughts to disconnect, our minds to overload, our brains to feel like they are on the verge of explosion. We remember the time a fight broke out in class and we had to stop it. We remember the time the principal punished our stu­dent (without our knowledge) for a minor infraction. We remem­ber the time a child vomited on our new shoes and we had to wear them the remainder of the day. These are the standout episodes. The disruptions are certainly memorable, and they can make for good- natured storytelling. According to Jones, however, the toll of these big moments of disruption pales in comparison to the smaller ones. Both com­mon and constant, small disruptions erode our patience and rob our peace of mind. Like the constant drip of a faucet or hum of a motor, it is the underlying persistence of sound and motion that can zap our energy and compromise our endurance. Are we aware of or immune to the low levels of noise and disarray in our classes? Are our students? While perhaps not warranting punishment or disciplinary action, small disruptions may be subliminal, but they are powerful. For the vitality of our students and ourselves, noting the impact of small interruptions may be worth a look, a listen, and a resolution. The most persistent misconception about discipline is that the most important problems in discipline management are the biggest problems, the crises. Certainly they are the most memorable. When teachers look back over the year, they will certainly remember the time the fight broke out or the time a student told them to do an unnatural act . . . . The most important and costly type of discipline problem in any classroom is the small disruption . . . . Ironically, therefore, the most important discipline problem in the classroom is the small disruption, not the crisis. It is the small disruption by its very frequency that destroys the teacher’s patience by degrees and destroys learning by the minute.

2003 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Krohn ◽  
Axel Kornerup Hansen ◽  
Nils Dragsted

The widespread use of individually ventilated cage (IVC) systems today has made the impact of CO2 on rodents a highly important matter. Leaving cages from these systems without ventilation increases CO2 concentrations inside the cages, as CO2 generated from the animals is no longer removed actively. In modern IVC systems the CO2 levels may reach 3-5% within a very short time, as the cages are very tightly sealed. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of 1%, 3%, and 5% CO2 by studying the preferences of the animals as well as changes in the heart rate and systolic blood pressure as measured by telemetry. The rats avoided the cages, which contained 3% CO2. In the telemetric study an anaesthetic effect on the rats were seen at 3% as a drop in the heart rate, and at 5% CO2 a drop in the systolic blood pressure was also seen. The results from the present study could indicate that CO2 levels of up to 3% do not affect the animals, or at least only to a minor extent, but that if the animals are exposed to CO2 levels of higher than 3% they are affected directly as seen by changes in physiological parameters and preferences.


1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 179-187
Author(s):  
Clifford N. Matthews ◽  
Rose A. Pesce-Rodriguez ◽  
Shirley A. Liebman

AbstractHydrogen cyanide polymers – heterogeneous solids ranging in color from yellow to orange to brown to black – may be among the organic macromolecules most readily formed within the Solar System. The non-volatile black crust of comet Halley, for example, as well as the extensive orangebrown streaks in the atmosphere of Jupiter, might consist largely of such polymers synthesized from HCN formed by photolysis of methane and ammonia, the color observed depending on the concentration of HCN involved. Laboratory studies of these ubiquitous compounds point to the presence of polyamidine structures synthesized directly from hydrogen cyanide. These would be converted by water to polypeptides which can be further hydrolyzed to α-amino acids. Black polymers and multimers with conjugated ladder structures derived from HCN could also be formed and might well be the source of the many nitrogen heterocycles, adenine included, observed after pyrolysis. The dark brown color arising from the impacts of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter might therefore be mainly caused by the presence of HCN polymers, whether originally present, deposited by the impactor or synthesized directly from HCN. Spectroscopic detection of these predicted macromolecules and their hydrolytic and pyrolytic by-products would strengthen significantly the hypothesis that cyanide polymerization is a preferred pathway for prebiotic and extraterrestrial chemistry.


2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klea Faniko ◽  
Till Burckhardt ◽  
Oriane Sarrasin ◽  
Fabio Lorenzi-Cioldi ◽  
Siri Øyslebø Sørensen ◽  
...  

Abstract. Two studies carried out among Albanian public-sector employees examined the impact of different types of affirmative action policies (AAPs) on (counter)stereotypical perceptions of women in decision-making positions. Study 1 (N = 178) revealed that participants – especially women – perceived women in decision-making positions as more masculine (i.e., agentic) than feminine (i.e., communal). Study 2 (N = 239) showed that different types of AA had different effects on the attribution of gender stereotypes to AAP beneficiaries: Women benefiting from a quota policy were perceived as being more communal than agentic, while those benefiting from weak preferential treatment were perceived as being more agentic than communal. Furthermore, we examined how the belief that AAPs threaten men’s access to decision-making positions influenced the attribution of these traits to AAP beneficiaries. The results showed that men who reported high levels of perceived threat, as compared to men who reported low levels of perceived threat, attributed more communal than agentic traits to the beneficiaries of quotas. These findings suggest that AAPs may have created a backlash against its beneficiaries by emphasizing gender-stereotypical or counterstereotypical traits. Thus, the framing of AAPs, for instance, as a matter of enhancing organizational performance, in the process of policy making and implementation, may be a crucial tool to countering potential backlash.


Author(s):  
Michael O’Toole

In this article I examine aspects of the relationship between mothers and sons from an attachment perspective in an Irish context. Through the works of Irish writers such as Seamus Heaney, John McGahern, and Colm Tóibín, I focus on particular aspects of this relationship, which fails to support the developmental processes of separation and individuation in the many men who come to me for psychotherapy. I illustrate key points concerning this attachment dynamic through the use of clinical examples of my work with two men from my practice. While acknowledging that many other cultural factors play a significant role in the emotional development of children, integrating the work of our poets, novelists, and scholars with an attachment perspective


2007 ◽  
Vol 148 (4) ◽  
pp. 165-171
Author(s):  
Anna Berhidi ◽  
Edit Csajbók ◽  
Lívia Vasas

Nobody doubts the importance of the scientific performance’s evaluation. At the same time its way divides the group of experts. The present study mostly deals with the models of citation-analysis based evaluation. The aim of the authors is to present the background of the best known tool – Impact factor – since, according to the authors’ experience, to the many people use without knowing it well. In addition to the „nonofficial impact factor” and Euro-factor, the most promising index-number, h-index is presented. Finally new initiation – Index Copernicus Master List – is delineated, which is suitable to rank journals. Studying different indexes the authors make a proposal and complete the method of long standing for the evaluation of scientific performance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. V. Kudryavtseva ◽  
V. V. Tachalov ◽  
E. S. Loboda ◽  
L. Yu. Orekhova ◽  
E. Yu. Nechai ◽  
...  

Relevance. Periodontal diseases are a medical and social problem due to the wide spread among the population of developed countries and the impact on the quality of life. Among the many factors that are important in the development of inflammatory periodontal diseases, an important role is played by adherence to the recommendations of the dentist in respecting oral hygiene. Aim of the work was to study the adherence of patients of the dental clinic to compliance with preventive measures in the oral cavity.Materials and methods. A total of 98 patients of dental clinic, 62 female (medial age 38,6 ± 14,0 years) and 36 male (medial age 37,2±13,1 years) participated in survey. The study participants flled in the profle and answered questions about age, gender, harmful working conditions and bad habits, frequency of visits to the dental clinic, attitudes to the prevention of dental diseases, knowledge about the means and methods of oral hygiene.Results. As a result of the study, it was found that in the vast majority of cases, respondents are employed in production that does not adversely affect their health (91%), only 8% of patients indicated harmful working conditions.Conclusions. The study revealed that, despite the recommendations of the dentist, patients are not always committed to the implementation of preventive measures in the oral cavity. Dentists need to motivate patients to use not only the usual methods and means of hygiene, but also additional ones necessary for maintaining dental health.


Author(s):  
Benedetta Zavatta

Based on an analysis of the marginal markings and annotations Nietzsche made to the works of Emerson in his personal library, the book offers a philosophical interpretation of the impact on Nietzsche’s thought of his reading of these works, a reading that began when he was a schoolboy and extended to the final years of his conscious life. The many ideas and sources of inspiration that Nietzsche drew from Emerson can be organized in terms of two main lines of thought. The first line leads in the direction of the development of the individual personality, that is, the achievement of critical thinking, moral autonomy, and original self-expression. The second line of thought is the overcoming of individuality: that is to say, the need to transcend one’s own individual—and thus by definition limited—view of the world by continually confronting and engaging with visions different from one’s own and by putting into question and debating one’s own values and certainties. The image of the strong personality that Nietzsche forms thanks to his reading of Emerson ultimately takes on the appearance of a nomadic subject who is continually passing out of themselves—that is to say, abandoning their own positions and convictions—so as to undergo a constant process of evolution. In other words, the formation of the individual personality takes on the form of a regulative ideal: a goal that can never be said to have been definitively and once and for all attained.


This collection of twelve original essays by an international team of eminent scholars in the field of book history explores the many ways in which early modern books were subject to reworking, re-presentation, revision and reinterpretation. Their history is often the history of multiple, sometimes competing, agencies as their texts were re-packaged, redirected and transformed in ways that their original authors might hardly recognize. The essays discuss the processes of editing, revision, redaction, selection, abridgement, glossing, disputation, translation and posthumous publication that resulted in a textual elasticity and mobility that could dissolve distinctions between text and paratexts, textuality and intertextuality, manuscript and print, author and reader or editor, such that title and author’s name are no longer sufficient pointers to a book’s identity or contents. The essays are alive to the impact of commercial and technological aspects of book production and distribution (discussing, for example, the career of the pre-eminent bookseller John Nourse, the market appeal of abridgements, and the financial incentives to posthumous publication), but their interest is also in the many additional forms of agency that shaped texts and their meanings as books were repurposed to articulate, and respond to, a variety of cultural and individual needs. They engage with early modern religious, political, philosophical and scholarly trends and debates as they discuss a wide range of genres and kinds of publication (including fictional and non-fictional prose, verse miscellanies, abridgements, sermons, religious controversy) and of authors and booksellers (including Lucy Hutchinson, Richard Baxter, Thomas Burnet, Elizabeth Rowe, John Dryden, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lucy Hutchinson, Henry Maundrell, John Nourse; Jonathan Swift, Samuel Richardson, John Tillotson, Isaac Watts and John Wesley).


Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136346072098169
Author(s):  
Aidan McKearney

This article focuses on the experiences of gay men in the rural west and northwest region of Ireland, during a period of transformational social and political change in Irish society. These changes have helped facilitate new forms of LGBTQI visibility, and local radicalism in the region. Same-sex weddings, establishment of rural LGBT groups and marching under an LGBT banner at St Patricks Day parades would have been unthinkable in the recent past; but they are now becoming a reality. The men report continuing challenges in their lives as gay men in the nonmetropolitan space, but the emergence of new visibility, voice and cultural acceptance of LGBT people is helping change their lived experiences. The study demonstrates the impact of local activist LGBT citizens. Through their testimonies we can gain an insight into the many, varied and interwoven factors that have interplayed to create the conditions necessary for the men to: increasingly define themselves as gay to greater numbers of people in their localities; to embrace greater visibility and eschew strategies of silence; and aspire to a host of legal, political, cultural and social rights including same-sex marriage. Organic forms of visibility and local radicalism have emerged in the region and through an analysis of their testimonies we can see how the men continue to be transformed by an ever-changing landscape.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document