Three heads are better than one Essay Example for Free

Three heads are better than one Essay Three Heads are Better Than One: Response Robert J. Trotter, in this article on intelligence tests, focuses on the recent work of Sternberg (an IBM Professor of Psychology and Education at Yale University). Sternberg recalls at the beginning how his test scores on standardized tests were terrible as a child in the fifth grade because he was always nervous and ended up freaking out mid test. This continued until one year he had to retake a test with the grade below him where he noticed he was not near as nervous because he was around babies. This strange occurrence in his life lead Sternberg to study Psychology and attend Princeton for his graduate degree. He focused mainly on IQ tests and how IQ directly can influence peoples ability to decide how successful or unsuccessful someone can be at a certain occupation. While he was working as at Yale University he noticed how the graduate students that applied with exemplary grades, test scores, recommendations and accommodations were fought over by the Ivy League schools. Yet these same students would graduate statistically lower than their test scores and undergraduate grades would assume. Secondly, he noticed that tudents with quite low-test scores and grades, for Yale, with great recommendations when given a chance would succeed with flying colors. Finally a third group with mediocre test scores recommendations and grades managed to have great Job placement opportunities. These case studies lead to his creation of the Triarchic Theory of intelligence. Sternberg hypothesized that there are three types of intelligence each with an important role in academic studies and in the work force. Componential intelligence revolves around analytical thinking and is great for test taking and undergraduate studies. Experiential intelligence surrounds around using your experiences to think creatively. Lastly, contextual intelligence is the ability to be able to recognize the world around you and how to come out on top in any situation. The most interesting part of this article was that it stated as Sternberg was conducting his study and asking both psychologists and Fortune 500 executives if they felt prepared for their Jobs from college and graduate school, they almost all answered that graduate school did not prepare them well at all. Today in Society College is not an option for people who want to get high paying Jobs later in life. Although they were only looking at people who had IQs between 110 and 150, the differences in IQ scores had almost no effect on the performance or the merit based promotions an individual received. Intelligence will never take the place of creativity in graduate school, or real life Job environments. Sternberg argues There are three ways to be smart but ultimately what you want to do is take the components, apply them to your experience, and use them to adapt to and shape your environment. The origin of basic intelligence testing as argued by Richard J. Gerig was originally ypothesized by Plato as he stated in the Republic no two people are born exactly alike; but each differs from one and other in natural endowments, one being suited for one occupation and one for another. The next important researcher for the creation of intelligence testing was Francis Galton in England. Galton ha d a Darwin was his cousin. Galton tested over 10,000 different people at the 1884 London Exposition based on reaction time, sensory acuity, physical strength, and body proportions. His test however did not lead to any correlated answers and he was left ith almost no understanding of intelligence. Although he failed, he did however leave us with a good idea of hereditary intelligence as he hypothesized that genius was transferred through generations. The modern analytical based testing for intelligence was started by Alfred Binet at the turn of the twentieth century in France. Binet started these tests to give schools a way to know if a student had mental deficiencies at a young age in order for students with special needs to receive help.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by M

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States. Michelle Alexander (2010) argues that despite the old Jim Crow is death, does not necessarily means the end of racial caste (p.21). In her book â€Å"The New Jim Crow†, Alexander describes a set of practices and social discourses that serve to maintain African American people controlled by institutions. In this book her analyses is centered in examining the mass incarceration phenomenon in recent years. Comparing Jim Crow with mass incarceration she points out that mass incarceration is a network of laws, policies, customs and institutions that works together –almost invisible– to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined by race, African American (p. 178 -190). Alexander (2010) describes the New Jim Crow as a moment where society have already internalized the stereotypes of African American men as violent and more likely to commit crimes and where mass incarceration has been normalized – especially in poor areas– . That is, today is seen as normal that black parents are missing in their homes because they are in institutions of control (p.181). She also stresses American society denies racism when they assume the justice system works. Therefore, she claims that â€Å"mass incarceration is colorblind† (p.183). American society does not see the race biased within the institutions of control. Alexander (2010) suggests mass incarceration as a system of racialized social control that functions in the same way Jim Crow did. She describes how people that have been incarcer... ...ople (p.195). 7) Symbolic production of race. Perhaps this is the most important category of her analyses. She stresses that mass incarceration as Jim Crow and slavery define and reinforce what being a black person means. During slavery being black meant to be a slave. During Jim Crow meant to be a second class citizen. And mass incarceration defines black people, especially men, as criminals. We can conclude with her analyses that the criminal justice in America is biased an even though I don’t agree with the suggestion Alexander has heard from other people that mass incarceration is a â€Å"conspiracy to put blacks back in their place† (p.5). It is clear that the justice system in the US is not completely fair, and that collective action must arise to struggle it. Works Cited Alexander, M. (2010). The New Jim Crow. New York, NY: The New Press. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by M The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States. Michelle Alexander (2010) argues that despite the old Jim Crow is death, does not necessarily means the end of racial caste (p.21). In her book â€Å"The New Jim Crow†, Alexander describes a set of practices and social discourses that serve to maintain African American people controlled by institutions. In this book her analyses is centered in examining the mass incarceration phenomenon in recent years. Comparing Jim Crow with mass incarceration she points out that mass incarceration is a network of laws, policies, customs and institutions that works together –almost invisible– to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined by race, African American (p. 178 -190). Alexander (2010) describes the New Jim Crow as a moment where society have already internalized the stereotypes of African American men as violent and more likely to commit crimes and where mass incarceration has been normalized – especially in poor areas– . That is, today is seen as normal that black parents are missing in their homes because they are in institutions of control (p.181). She also stresses American society denies racism when they assume the justice system works. Therefore, she claims that â€Å"mass incarceration is colorblind† (p.183). American society does not see the race biased within the institutions of control. Alexander (2010) suggests mass incarceration as a system of racialized social control that functions in the same way Jim Crow did. She describes how people that have been incarcer... ...ople (p.195). 7) Symbolic production of race. Perhaps this is the most important category of her analyses. She stresses that mass incarceration as Jim Crow and slavery define and reinforce what being a black person means. During slavery being black meant to be a slave. During Jim Crow meant to be a second class citizen. And mass incarceration defines black people, especially men, as criminals. We can conclude with her analyses that the criminal justice in America is biased an even though I don’t agree with the suggestion Alexander has heard from other people that mass incarceration is a â€Å"conspiracy to put blacks back in their place† (p.5). It is clear that the justice system in the US is not completely fair, and that collective action must arise to struggle it. Works Cited Alexander, M. (2010). The New Jim Crow. New York, NY: The New Press.

Double consciousness

W. E. B Du Bois’ â€Å"The Souls of Black Folk† is a powerful and engaging explication on the condition of the â€Å"American Negro. † The article traces the problems of African American’s struggle with identity in white-based America and the seemingly impossible task to carving a unique identity and self-consciousness. It is, as he notes, â€Å"a history of this strife, – this longing to attain self- conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. † Introduced in this line is the concept of a â€Å"double consciousness.† Du Bois believes that being ‘black’ has been both a blessing and a curse since one was â€Å"born with a veil† but also â€Å"gifted with second-sight. † The world does not award the Negro a â€Å"true self-consciousness† for his sense of self is always reflection of how others see him; a refracted image of oneself that has been dictated and distorted by othe rs with â€Å"amused contempt and pity. † An American Negro therefore feels a sense of duality with â€Å"two warring ideals in one dark body. †Yet the task to transcend that â€Å"double consciousness† and find union between two dualities is a difficult one for it is a painful journey of doubt and confusion in seeking â€Å"double aims† and â€Å"unreconciled ideals. † The American Negro needs to speak the language of the whites and accept their culture yet not be ashamed of his own. He must yet recognise that in order for there to be an emancipated future, the American Negro needs the knowledge of the white world which was â€Å"Greek to his own flesh and blood† and for a culture he rightly belongs, â€Å"he could not articulate the message.† Martin Luther King Jr. , arguably the most renowned of African Americans, is perhaps an apt example of the double consciousness and the struggle of the American Negro Du Bois writes of. In his desire to advance the rights of African Americans, end racial segregation and discrimination, King needed to speak the language of the white person and ironically share the ideals of liberty and freedom advanced by white Anglo-Saxon society. Yet King saw that it was necessary â€Å"in the name of this the land of their fathers’ fathers, and in the name of human opportunity. †

An Overview of Christallers Central Place Theory

Central place theory is a spatial theory in urban geography that attempts to explain the reasons behind the distribution patterns, size, and a number of cities and towns around the world. It also attempts to provide a framework by which those areas can be studied both for historical reasons and for the locational patterns of areas today. Origin of the Theory The theory was first developed by the German geographer  Walter Christaller  in 1933 after he began to recognize the economic relationships between cities and their hinterlands (areas farther away). He mainly tested the theory in southern Germany and came to the conclusion that people gather together in cities to share goods and ideas and that communities—or central places—exist for purely economic reasons. Before testing his theory, however, Christaller had to first define the central place. In keeping with his economic focus, he decided that the central place exists primarily to provide goods and services to its surrounding population. The city is, in essence, a distribution center. Christallers Assumptions To focus on the economic aspects of his theory, Christaller had to create a set of assumptions. He decided that the countryside in the areas he was studying would be flat, so no barriers would exist to impede peoples movement across it. In addition, two assumptions were made about human behavior: Humans will always purchase goods from the closest place that offers them.Whenever the demand for a certain good is high, it will be offered in close proximity to the population. When demand drops, so too does the availability of the good. In addition, the threshold is an important concept in Christallers study. This is the minimum number of people needed for a central place business or activity to remain active and prosperous. This led to Christallers idea of low- and high-order goods. Low-order goods are things that are replenished frequently such as food and other routine household items. Since people buy these items regularly, small businesses in small towns can survive because people will buy frequently at closer locations instead of going into the city. High-order goods, by contrast, are specialized items such as automobiles, furniture, fine jewelry, and household appliances that people buy less often. Because they require a large threshold and people do not purchase them regularly, many businesses selling these items cannot survive in areas where the population is small. Therefore, these businesses often locate in big cities that can serve a large population in the surrounding hinterland. Size and Spacing Within the central place system, there are five sizes of communities:   HamletVillageTownCityRegional capital A hamlet is the smallest place, a rural community that is too small to be considered a village. Cape Dorset (population 1,200), located in Canadas Nunavut Territory is an example of a hamlet. Examples of regional capitals—which are not necessarily political capitals—would include Paris or Los Angeles. These cities provide the highest order of goods possible and serve a huge hinterland. Geometry and Ordering The central place is located at the vertexes (points) of equilateral triangles. Central places serve the evenly distributed consumers who are closest to the central place. As the vertexes connect, they form a series of hexagons—the traditional shape of many central place models. The hexagon is ideal because it allows the triangles formed by the central place vertexes to connect, and it represents the assumption that consumers will visit the closest place offering the goods they need. In addition, central place theory has three orders or principles. The first is the marketing principle and is shown as K3 (where K is a constant). In this system, market areas at a certain level of the central place hierarchy are three times larger than the next lowest one. The different levels then follow a progression of threes, meaning that as you move through the order of places, the number of the next level increases threefold. For example, when there are two cities, there would be six towns, 18 villages, and 54 hamlets. There is also the transportation principle (K4) where areas in the central place hierarchy are four times bigger than the area in the next lowest order. Finally, the administrative principle (K7) is the last system where the variation between the lowest and highest orders increase by a factor of seven. Here, the highest order trade area completely covers that of the lowest order, meaning that the market serves a larger area. Losch’s Central Place Theory In 1954, German economist August Losch modified Christallers central place theory because he believed it was too rigid. He thought that Christallers model led to patterns where the distribution of goods and the accumulation of profits were based entirely on location. He instead focused on maximizing consumer welfare and creating an ideal consumer landscape where the need to travel for any good was minimized, and profits remained relatively equal, regardless of the location where goods are sold. Central Place Theory Today Though Loschs central place theory looks at the ideal environment for the consumer, both his and Christallers ideas are essential to studying the location of retail in urban areas today. Often, small hamlets in rural areas do act as the central place for various small settlements because they are where people travel to buy their everyday goods. However, when they need to buy higher-value goods such as cars and computers, consumers who live in hamlets or villages have to travel into the larger town or city, which serves not only their small settlement but those around them as well. This model is shown all over the world, from rural areas of England to the U.S. Midwest or Alaska with the many small communities that are served by larger towns, cities, and regional capitals.