Self-Expression Project (VOICE) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Self-Expression Project (VOICE) - Essay Example Many scholars argue that the easiest way to solve a conflict is to understand what kind of conflict the organization is being faced with and to understand the motivations behind those conflicts (Jack, LaFrance, & Ginter, 2003). Once this has been established, it is easy to prescribe s a solution for the problem by addressing the root cause of that problem. In today’s world, there are a lot of innovative ways in which conflicts could be solved but the choosing of the most appropriate method is the prerogative of the concerned organization y examining the issues at hand and identifying the most effective way to deal with the situation. Creative solutions are usually the nest in solving conflicts although many are not used because of a lack of precedence (Keyton, 2011). The problem in this situation therefore is persistent conflicts between the employees and the management from tasks and processes. The employees argue that the organization does not understand their needs while th e organization claims that the employees do not understand its policies and processes. This has created conflicts in the organization leading to increased employee turnover and absenteeism. The creative idea leading to the innovation Research has shown that it is only through critical thinking and careful analysis of a situation that individuals will be able to bring a situation into perspective and thus find a solution for it. It is not possible to craft a solution to a problem without a careful analysis of the problem in order to understand the root cause of the issue (Miner, 2007). However, when such issues arise, there are always creative ways to solve them and this can only be achieved through brainstorming and coming up with an idea that will help in solving the problem (Mullins, 2005). Much of what people think of are as a result of their interpretation of the issue and thus may think that contemporary approaches to solving the problem would easily work without hitches. In th is situation, the idea therefore is to enable the management and the employee to reach a consensus and avoid the constant wrangles that exist between the management and the employees. The idea is to make them meet and discuss what is going on in the organization and how they can contribute to alleviating or solving the conflicts that have engulfed them. Therefore, the reasoning here is that when these two groups sit together in a free environment they will be in a better position to air out their views freely and each one of them will contribute to the problem and explain what each party is doing and what they think is aggrieving the other party so that they can come up with solutions on how to solve future problems. Once the people have met, a conducive environment is created, on which is free from retribution and one that supports free expression of ideas from all the parties concerned. The idea is that each party will listen to the other and be able to understand where the proble m is coming from and how they can help one another in sorting out the problem. It is widely accepted that lack of effective communication is what leads to conflicts (West, 2004). This innovative idea is thus meant to bring the conflicting sides together to a table, on a weekly basis, with the management and the employees being there to talk about any issue they feel is affecting them. Expected value of the innovation

Most Influential Nba Players Essay Example for Free

Most Influential Nba Players Essay He would travel back and forth to school in a town called French Lick, where he excelled at basketball at an early age. Bird was a key component in his high schools basketball team, where he was the leading all-time scorer by the time he graduated in 1974. Larry Bird was drafted by the Boston Celtics with the sixth overall pick in the 1978 draft. The Celtics gave Bird a contract worth $3. 25 million over five years. Birds new contract made him the highest paid rookie in the history of team sports at that time. Bird averaged 21. points per game, and averaged 143 steals and 2,955 minutes per season played. He led the Celtics to 3 championships and was also awarded MVP (most valuable player) 3 times. After helping the Dream Team to Olympic glory, Bird announced his retirement from the game of basketball in 1992. Bird ended his career with 21,791 points, 8,974 rebounds, and 5,695 assists; he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1998. Shortly after his announcement, he became an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics. At the end of his career Bird was making $23 million a year (Larry Bird Biography 1,2). Michael Jordan was an influential player in high school and in the NBA in the 1980s-1990s. He was born on February 17, 1963, in Brooklyn, New York. In 1975 Jordan enjoyed playing baseball and was on the little league team, leading them to the Little league World Series. Jordan was an exceptional pitcher at an early age. It wasnt till an older age when he realized what a good basketball player he was. In the Summer of 1984, Jordan made his first appearance at the Olympic Games as a member of the U. S. Olympic basketball team. In late 1984 Jordan joined the Chicago Bulls and led them to six national championships. He led the league in scoring with an average of 31. 5 points per game. Chicago recorded 61 wins, and Jordan then turned in one of the most dominating postseasons in NBA history, averaging 31. 1 points, 6. 4 rebounds, and 8. 4 assists per game. He became the first player since Wilt Chamberlin to score more than 3,000 points in a single season. Jordan was awarded MVP eight times, received NBA Rookie of the year award, and was selected for the All-Star Game. Jordan invested between $10 million and $20 million to become part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats in 2006. He was named the teams Managing Member of Basketball Operations. Bobcats majority owner Robert Johnson sought Jordan for his basketball knowledge and management skills. In 2010, Johnson sold the team to Jordan. The sale made Jordan the primary owner of the Bobcats. Jordan was making $90 million a year at the end of his career (Michael Jordan 1,2). LeBron James has been an influential player in his high school and in the NBA from 2002-2013. LeBron James was born on December 30, 1984 in Akron, Ohio. James also had a tough childhood with his dad leaving him and his mom. He showed a talent for the sport of basketball at an early age and was known as a prodigy in high school. LeBron James attended St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio. As a freshman, James averaged 18. 0 points and 6. 2 rebounds per game, leading his team to a 27-0 record and a Division III state title. He started off his career on the Cleveland Cavaliers. He is now currently on the Miami Heat averaging 29. 7 points, 8. assists and 7. 3 rebounds per game, and he was selected to his sixth consecutive All-Star appearance. James became the first player since Oscar Robertson to have at least 40 points, 15 assists and 13 rebounds in a regular season game. James scored his 20,000th career point on March 13, the youngest player in NBA history to achieve such an accomplishment. LeBron has been awarded the MVP award 4 times and also is the youngest player to win the Rookie of the year award. At the end of this year James will make 60 million (LeBron James Biography 1,2). Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James are some of the most inspirational and energetic players in the NBA. They never lost the thirst to succeed and the preservation to win. They will go down in history as the definition of competition at its best. Through tough times and tragedy, they never gave up and pressed on. The reason for their well-known success has been nothing short of hard work and determination. Their will to win, has motivated many athletes and non-athletes alike to set goals for themselves and to reach them.

Pre Listening Stage English Listening Teaching

Pre Listening Stage English Listening Teaching Language can be recognized as a media of communication, rather than the simple complex of sound, vocabulary and grammar. English language teaching (ELT), therefore, has long been conducted through reading, listening as receptive skills and speaking, writing as productive skills in communication. Among all the factors, listening is an essential section of language competence and it indicates the comprehending of spoken language. During the process, listening input is usually accompanied with other sounds and sometimes with visual input (Lynch Mendelsohn, 2002). In making sense of the listening contents, the context of the communication happens in and listeners relevant prior knowledge is vital (ibid). However, as many linguists reviewed, listening has long been neglected until the early 1970s (Morley, 2001; Brown, 1987; Rivers, 1966). It is only since then that listening attracts more interests from linguists and researchers. Therefore, as it is far less studied than other fundamental skills, listening needs more research and is worth to be emphasized in ELT. II. An Overview of a Listening Lesson In the contemporary English language teaching and research, listening is becoming more and more important. Some researchers advocate and encourage teachers to apply listening strategies in classroom teaching and guide students to listen (Mendelsohn, 1994; Field, 1998). Listening approaches are also suggested and experienced. Harmer (1987) reviewed some basic principles of receptive skills and stated that, learners read and listen to language with purpose, desire and expectations. He further pointed out that, a lead-in stage can create expectations and arouse the students motivation in the following listening contents. Field (1998) proposed a diagnostic approach which involves pre-listening, listening and post-listening in a listening class. He asserts that the approach can check and adjust students listening skills through short micro-listening exercises. According to the introduction given by Hedge (2000), the process of listening class can be divided into three stages, pre-listenin g stage, while-listening stage and post-listening stage. 1. Pre-listening Stage It is commonly recognized that pre-listening is a preparation of the listening class. In this stage, teachers tend to arouse learners expectation and interest of the language text they are going to listen. They can also motivate learners by providing background knowledge of the text; organizing learners to discuss a picture or a related topic which involves in the text; asking some related questions to the text, and etc. In general, pre-listening plays a role of warming-up and the main aim of this stage is to make learners focus their attention on the following while-listening stage and decrease the difficulties of the text. It is more important in its relating to and being of help to many other aspects which will be represented later. 2. While-listening Stage While-listening is the main procedure of listening information input. In this stage, learners are given some audio materials for listening. Learners may be requested to deal with some questions with the listening materials, such as Yes/No questions, Cloze, True/False questions and etc. Usually learners need to answer the questions simultaneously or take note of some main points of the listening materials. Teachers, as a guide during this process take control of the speed of the materials, start or pause of the machine and raise some questions for discussions or give necessary explanations to help the learner comprehend the materials. Depending on the learners language level and the difficulty level of the materials, teachers can decide the times of presenting the listening materials. The purpose of while-listening is to provide the learners with audio material input with exercises and therefore promote the learners listening competence. 3. Post-listening Stage Post-listening is also an important stage as it reviews and checks the listening efficiency and result. During this stage, teachers are not only supposed to check the answers, they also need to lead the learners to consolidate the comprehension of the listening input. They can organize further discussions on the listening text, explain some new terms and phrases, summing up appeared language rules and designing some related exercise for the learners to strengthen their impression about the knowledge. In addition, giving a dictation on a summary of the text may check all the different language points and learners mastery of knowledge. Via the first two stages, learners have received many comprehensible input, thus, the purpose of post-listening is to transfer these input into intake. In another word, the stage of post-listening can be considered as a transformation of language knowledge to language competence in listening teaching section. III. The Essentiality of Pre-listening in a Listening Class Pre-listening, as the first stage of listening teaching, is long argued by linguists and teachers on its contexts and role in the listening teaching. For example, some researchers (Buck, 1991; Cohen, 1984) suggested arrange a question preview in pre-listening stage with the reason that it may guide the students attention in the right direction. On the contrary, others (Ur, 1984; Weir, 1993) argued that the question preview process may distract the learners from attending to the actual input. Hence, it is worthwhile to clarify the status of pre-listening in classroom teaching of listening. Before analyzing the role of pre-listening in the process of a listening class, it is useful to overview the difficulties in listening teaching initially so that the role of pre-listening stage can be further discussed. 1. The Difficulties in Teaching Listening Comparing to other language competence, such as reading and writing, listening has some specific features which could bring learners pressure and difficulty in dealing with it. They are concluded as follows (Lynch Mendelsohn, 2002; Thomson, 2005): High frequency in communication. Based on the investigation of Rivers and Temperley (1978), listening takes approximately 45% of the place in communication of an individuals daily life. Passivity. Apparently, listening is considered as a totally passive action in communication, though it is further regarded as an active process rather than its original passive role (Lynch Mendelsohn, 2002). Speediness and repeatlessness. Differ from reading, listening normally needs to process the information instantly and usually just once. It is not as flexible as in reading that readers can refer to the contents as many times as they like. Other widely-concerned aspects of natural characteristics. In the process of listening, many other aspects of language of knowledge are needed such as phonetic, vocabulary, grammar. Due to above features of listening, teaching listening was involved in an amount of difficulties. According to the introduction of Cherry (1957), in second and foreign language listening, most of the difficulties are caused by uncertainty which could present in the area of speech sounds and patterns, language and syntax, recognition of content and other influence of environment. The difficulties could show different representations in classroom teaching of listening: Learners could be anxious about a long text for the reason of lacking time to process information. Unfamiliar context and background could scare the learners and make them lose interests and patience. Learners may be influenced by new vocabularies, phonetic phenomenon, grammar structure and these affections could decrease their comprehension about the text. By giving a long audio material, learners could have difficulties to concentrate on the important information. There are also some other elements in the process of listening which could confuse the learners such as different accent, background noise and assimilation, etc. 2. The Functions of Pre-listening in a Listening Class As discussed above, pre-listening can be recognized as a stage of preparation and warming up of the whole process of listening. As some researchers (Rees,2002; Peachey,2002)review, there are a few of aims and types of pre-listening tasks that enable the learners deal with the following listening text smoothly and strategically, such as to generate interest, build up confidence and facilitate comprehension. Following is the detailed discussions on the functions of pre-listening. (1) Motivating learners People believe Interest is the best teacher. To arouse students interests is one of the most important conditions for a teaching process. Only when the students are interested in the contents of teaching can the efficiency of teaching and learning be guaranteed. Therefore, the first role of pre-listening is motivating learners. Underwood (1989) summarizes a variety of ways of pre-listening work can be carried out during the classroom teaching. Some of them are suitable in motivating students: The teacher gives background information. Organizing the students to have a discussion about the topic or situation in the upcoming text. Showing a picture which is related to the content of the text. To make the listening task interesting, the teacher also can tell the beginning part of the text and provide with some questions as a guideline for the students to guess the end or take some keywords for brainstorming. (2) Activating current world knowledge and acquiring new knowledge The main purpose of listening is to teach the knowledge of language and help the learners to be competent in listening. Design some activities that can activate learners world knowledge will facilitate them behave better in the listening. Moreover, pre-listening can also play a role to input some new language knowledge. Therefore, it is necessary and meaningful to introduce or review the language knowledge in pre-listening session. There could be a number of ways to make this part meaningful, depends on the content of the text, the teacher can: List the new vocabularies and make sure the students know the meaning and the pronunciation of each one. Introduce some phonetics knowledge which could impact on comprehension, such as jointed sounds, lost sounds and etc. Review the complex grammar rules and introduce new sentence patterns if any. Introduce some language discourse knowledge briefly. (3) Setting context and predicting content Rees (2002) emphasized the importance of setting context for listeners in pre-listening session because even in exams learners have the chance to know a general idea of the listening materials. It will greatly help them to predict what they are going to learn. It will help learners to form expectancy of what they will listen and this is an important listening strategy for their future study. Listening is a difficult and complex section in language learning. Especially in foreign language teaching which has no language environment for practising, listening competence seems even harder to be developed. Thus, before presenting a long and horrible text, acquiring some listening techniques (for instance, concentrating on the stressed words, predicting the information, etc.) could be helpful for the students to deal with the task. (4) Checking the listening task To check with the learners if they have full understanding of the task is important in pre-listening. In this procedure, the teacher is recommended to set some tasks according to the content of the text for the students. They can also directly make sure with them in case misunderstanding happens and it may demotivate them. In the specific classroom activity, the task could be one or two simple questions which relate to the final or important point of the text. For example, if the main content of the text is concerned about competing for a job, the task could be Who got the job in the end, if it is about a process of making a manufactory, the task could be designed as How many procedures are needed to make xxx. IV. The Appropriate Length of Pre-listening By analyzing the role and functions of pre-listening, the essentiality of pre-listening stage is undoubted and it seems that it is worthwhile to spend much time and energy on this stage. However, the main process of listening class must be a fluent work. It does not make sense to spend too much time on pre-listening. The fundamental aim of pre-listening is to prepare learners behave better in while-listening. Actually, the length of pre-listening is not fixed in every listening class. As Rees (ibid) argues, pre-listening should take a fair proportion of a lesson but it usually depends on the teachers aim and the learners language level to decide how long it should take. Also, based on the different backgrounds of the texts (length, difficulty, genre, etc.) and the level of the learners (beginning, intermediate, advanced, etc.), the type and length of pre-listening can be various. For example, if the content of the text is easy to understand, teachers do not need to spend too much time on basic language knowledge teaching any more; if the students are advanced learners, it is unnecessary to spend much time on pre-listening part for the reason that they have already have enough language basis and may be confident in what they are going to listen. On the contrary, if the learners are at beginning level, the pre-listening part is supposed to be longer. In addition, a very short listening task can be prepared by simply presenting several sentences to clarify the situation of the listening or the necessary information in which the length of pre-listening can be very short. Therefore, pre-listening is rather flexible and the length can be based on the specific aim and situation. Via analyzing the role of pre-listening in a listening lesson and its relationship with the other two stages, it shows that well-arranged pre-listening activities are essential for listening comprehension. V. Conclusion Listening is an essential competence in language teaching and learning. On account of the features of listening teaching and the role of pre-listening stage, it is vital to design and arrange appropriate pre-listening activities in a listening lesson. A well-planned pre-listening activity could prepare the students to deal with the listening text smoothly. It is also helpful to build up students confidence and motivate them to listen. During the pre-listening process, teachers can take the opportunity to introduce world knowledge and related language knowledge related to the text. Moreover, it devotes to fulfill the whole process of a listening lesson in making the work more effective and efficient. However, even though pre-listening plays a significant role in the whole listening process, it does not mean that it needs to occupy too much time in the classroom teaching. The length of pre-listening part could be flexible in different circumstance. Based on the analysis of the features and aim of listening teaching and the role of pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening stage in a listening lesson respectively, a successful listening class is recommended to include following elements: The audio materials are appropriate for the learners in length, speed and difficulty. The students are well motivated before listening to the text. The aim and forms of the listening task is clarified to students. The length of each stage are well arranged and closely connected with each other. The old saying goes, Well begun is half done. As the warming-up of formal listening process, pre-listening should be well-organized and emphasized to play its role of stimulating students motivation and expectations for the text. Hence, more investigation should be focused on designing optimizing pre-listening activities in order to facilitate the listening teaching in ELT.

Therapies for Leukemia Patients Essay -- Leukemia

Executive Summary Two promising therapies for leukemia patients are bone marrow transplantation and peripheral stem cell transplantation. Successful transplants require that two immunologic barriers be overcome: a host-versus-graft (HVG) reaction and a graft-versus-host (GVH) reaction. A myeloablative conditioning regimen, which involves a depletion of the patient’s immune system, usually precedes the transplantation of donor stem cells to control the HVG. However, twentyfive to 35% of patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation experience life-threatening transplant-related complications (Holler 1990). Serum tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-_ levels are elevated prior to these complications and are indicative of future problems, such as rejection, graft-versus-host disease, interstitial pneumonitis, endothelial leakage syndrome, and venoocclusive disease (Remberger 1994). As a result, many patients who are at high risk for these complications, including patients over 55 years old, patients with poor overall health, and children, are turned down for stem cell transplantation. In the mid-1990’s, a regimen was developed that uses non-myeloablative conditioning. In this procedure, the immune system of the recipient is not totally depleted, which creates a tolerable regimen for those high risk patients. This project will compare the relative toxicity of myeloablative allogenic peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (PBSCT) and non-myeloablative PBSCT. This will involve collecting patient serum samples at various time intervals during treatment. The samples will be evaluated for TNF-a concentrations using the ELISA technique. The data will then be used to determine the toxicity of each regimen. This study will p... ...ne response. MacKay I, Rosen F: The Immune System. NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE 2000; 343: 108-117. This is the second part of the review article on immunology. It describes lymphocytes and lymphoid tissue, molecular aspects of the immune response, the activation and regulation of lymphocytes, immune protection by antibodies and immunologic technology. Tanaka J, Imamura M, Kasai M, et al: The important balance between cytokines derived from type 1 and type 2 helper T cells in the control of graft-versus-host disease. BONE MARROW TRANSPLANTATION 1997; 19: 571-576. This article assesses the cytokine network after transplantation, and its connection to graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). It looks at the balance between type 1 (Th1) and type 2 (Th2) helper T cells, and concludes that severe GVHD may be related to a cytokine imbalance between the helper cells.

Analysising Television Advertisements: Music Products

I have found six advertisements for music, such as compilations and greatest hits albums; they were all obtained between the times of 6pm and 8pm on Channel Four. The majority of this time was taken up by the broadcasting of a live concert of a ‘chart topping' solo artist. The first advertisement is for the band True Steppers' album True Stepping. Their record company is Virgin, so the advertisement began with a large Virgin symbol surrounded with a white border: this border remained unchanged throughout the advertisement and is the same with all Virgin music advertisements. This means one can identify and associate all advertisements like it with the Virgin record label. The music then began to play: it was the band's number one hit and instantly grabbed the attention of anyone who knew the song. The band itself is not widely known, but they have made a number of songs featuring more famous artists than themselves. A list of these artists was then read out to associate these big names with this smaller product. This was to make people buy the record not only for the main band but also, for the featured artists. The music continues to play and the tracks on the album are listed. The narrator then states ‘It's so good you might just want to share it with everyone else'. An attractive young lady is then shown, wearing very revealing clothes, standing outside a building with the album playing, extremely loud. There are also many respectable onlookers, (men in suits, pensioners and mothers with young children) are watching with looks of horror on their faces. This essentially uses sex to sell the product however it also uses the image of being ‘cool'. Loud music and the appearance of standing up against the respectable majority bring about this image and encourage the target audience want to buy the product just to be cool and be in the ‘in crowd': where a lot of teenagers would like to be. Finally the narrator says the Virgin slogan ‘Whatever turns you on' and a picture of the box comes up with a large price beneath it. The price is stated and is made to stand out because it is a reasonably low price and is an important factor along with the high quality of the product, tending to make people more likely to part with their money. The second advertisement is for a compilation of various artists, of the dance and trace genres. The advertisement starts on a typical, boring, dull coloured, city bus. The camera the zooms in on the back row, where a girl is reading the Holy Bible. However the camera only just gives the viewer time to take all this information in, before it continues it's zoom into her golden eyes. In the pupil of here eye is a nun standing in front of a stained glass window, the music then begins and the nun's vestments fall to the ground to reveal a stereotypical ‘clubber'. It is then that the viewer realises that it is not in fact a stained glass window but a set of disco lights and is a club not a church or nunnery. A number of tracks are played and the appropriate artists are listed, the music stops and the camera zooms back to show the girl looking shocked as though she has just found something out, or been converted The camera then zooms out to the front of the bus. The screen blurs and a picture of the box appears. No price is mentioned nor is there any other information on the product. Then for the first time is the name of the product mentioned, The Clubbers' Bible, and a slogan appears ‘The Clubbers' Bible: worship your weekends'. The advertisement starts off dull so that the contrast between the bright club and the grey bus is as large as possible. The bus is meant to show how boring your life is and how colourful your life could be if you brought this product: it is appealing to our aspirational desires. The girl is reading the Bible for the simple reason of the products name. The nun in front of the stained glass window draws the viewer further into the religious implications the product makes but then it is all change to the music side of the product. The advertisement again uses an attractive young woman as a suggestive lever to bend the viewer towards buying the product. The club featured in the advertisement reveals more information on the true nature of the product and makes people associate the perfection and holiness of the Bible with the product, clubs and the people within. This perfection is attempting to sell the product in the real and very imperfect world. The design on the front of the box is the same as that on the Bible again connecting the Bible and this product. A price is not mentioned at the end, probably because the product is rather more expensive than it should be so less people would be willing to part with their hard earned cash. The whole advert carries a mainly religious theme to imply perfection and superiority so it appears above any rivals in the mind of the viewer. The third advertisement is for another compilation called R&B2. The music began at once with a recent hit by one of the featured bands. This action was to entice the viewer into concentrating on the advert to see if any other major artists are mentioned, which they are. The compilation is a double CD and in the advertisement there are only six artists mentioned: these are the most widely known in the compilation. The most renowned artists are the only ones mentioned because this would make people want to buy the whole record for individual or a view of the featured artists, not for the fact that there are many artists. The advertisement has no slogan but a price is mentioned and is also made very prominent. In this case the price is mentioned because it is very low and is therefore a good selling angle of the product and would help it to sell. The advertisers would have paid for this prime time (mentioned above) in order to catch their target audience, whom I believe to be mainly teenagers, because they have the largest effect on record sales. If they are not buying the record themselves then they are having it bought for them as a gift. It is my belief that teenagers are the target audience because the majority of the crowd at the concert were teenagers: therefore I come to the conclusion that this percentage will also be the equivalent for home viewers, the majority would be in their teens. Here are the reasons that I believe that the adverts are aimed at people in their teens: firstly all of the people featured in the above advertisement, who were not artists, appear to be in their early twenties or teens, so teenagers can imagine themselves in the place of those in the advertisement. Secondly, a lot of bright and appealing colours are used throughout, which I find attractive, and I therefore conclude that other teenagers would like this and it would help the adverts to lodge themselves in the mind of the viewer. Finally, sex appeal is used in two of the above advertisements, but only very mildly, and as a teenager one becomes aware, for the first time, of the use of sex in advertising in the real world.?

Gun Accidents Among Children

â€Å"Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. † This is a phrase that has been used carelessly over the years. Gun accidents are continuously increasing, and innocent children are the ones who are suffering from this carelessness. What happens when those guns lie in the hands of our children? Parents lose children, grandparents lose grandchildren, and siblings lose a brother or a sister. Every nine hours a child, under the age of fifteen, dies from a firearm accident. What could be done to ensure that tragedies like this do not happen?Children’s television programs should stop showing violence, parents and children need to be more educated on this issue, guns should be locked up, and gun laws need to be stricter. One reason why gun accidents are occurring with children is because of the violence shown on television programs and video games. Children watch more and more television each day. Children also rely a lot on video games for entertainment. The televis ion shows children watch oftentimes show violence. Video games show people killing â€Å"monsters† with guns. The monster then gets back up and the game continues.Children are very impressionable. What do children think when they see this? The children see this happening on games and television shows and believe the gun is just a toy. They do not see how truly dangerous guns are. Then, children see a real gun and play with it. They shoot themselves or another child believing that they will be just fine. This is because that is all they have ever seen. Parents need to monitor children’s television shows and video games carefully. Another reason why gun accidents are occurring with children is because of the lack of gun safety education with parents and children.Parents do not have a full understanding of how many accidents happen due to guns. Every parent should teach their children how dangerous guns are. Telling a child to not touch a gun is not enough. Explain to chi ldren what happens when they play with a gun. There are so many programs available for parents to learn as well as to teach children gun safety. Tell them how they, themselves, could get hurt or hurt another child. Teach them to never play with a gun, to let an adult know if they see one. A child as young as three has the strength to pull the trigger. It is a parent’s right to decide hether their children play with toy guns or not. If they choose to do so, educating them on the difference of a toy gun and a real gun is very important. Also, children should not be allowed to pretend to shoot a person. Children eight years and younger cannot tell the difference in a real or pretend gun. One of the most important reasons why gun accidents are occurring with children is because of the accessibility of guns. One-third of every American family that owns a gun does not keep it locked up. Having a gun â€Å"put up† is not going to stop a child from accessing it.In 72% of gun a ccident deaths, injuries, and suicides, in children from 0-19 years old, the gun was kept in their home, a relative’s home, or a friend’s home. That is a large amount of accidents that could have been prevented. Guns and ammunition should be locked up and the keys put away. Always keep the safety on on the gun. Keeping the safety on will prevent a child from unintentional harm if a gun is found. Guns are very dangerous and safety is very important. Never assume your child or other children will know the difference in real and toy guns.Be cautions if a gun is in the home, our children’s lives depend on it. The last reason why gun accidents are occurring with children is because of the gun laws. Laws should be stricter. Firearms should be very difficult to obtain. Gun laws should include a training course for anyone who owns a gun. No one should own a gun that does not understand how it works. An average, five hundred children die every year due to gun accidents. In a survey by Josephson Institute of Ethics, â€Å"36% of teenagers aged twelve to nineteen say they could obtain a handgun if they wanted to. Children get these handguns from people selling them on the street. Not every person should be allowed to own a gun. Laws are not strict enough, making purchasing guns an easy task. Parents feel the need to have protection because of the accessibility of guns. If guns were harder to obtain, parents would not have to worry so much. Keeping guns out of the hands of â€Å"bad people† can keep them out of the hands of our children. In conclusion, gun accidents occur with children and are increasing.Monitoring television programs and video games more closely, educating parents and children on gun dangers, locking guns up, and making gun laws stricter could prevent tragedies from happening. These are simple steps that make a huge difference. Do not risk the safety of children. Take precautions on preventing accidents. A change has to be ma de. Works Cited Anderson, George M. â€Å"America. † 172. 8(2010): p. 26-28. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. U. S. National Library of Health. Medline Plus. 18 April 2012. Web. 06 Nov, 2012. Source: Nemours Foundation. KidsHealth, Gun Safety. 2012. Web.