Concept of Artful Teaching

In the classroom, there are different children with different intelligence quotient and while having this in mind, it is necessary to utilize the concept of artful teaching in order to gain the attention of the students and make them understand the subject matter. The concept of artful teaching encompasses strategies that utilize the power of visuals, creativity and performance-based teaching in the classroom in order to establish a teacher-student communication. This method helps explore the inner recess of the human mind, facilitate deep cognitive thinking in the classroom and fosters creativity within the students in a way that develops their skills.

Considering the diversity in IQs of student within a classroom, the teacher could make use of catchy explanatory instructional materials that catch the fancy of the students. When the topic demands it, films pertaining to the topic being taught could also be used; interactive images could be projected just to prick the imagination of the students in the classroom. Applying the concept of artful teaching involves the teacher being familiar with the students in the class individually. It is only then could the strategy that works on each student be utilized effectively. For instance if class is being held on a particular topic, different instructional materials that appeal to different students should be used, knowing fully well the needs of each student. Once this is done, the students would surely have a better understanding of the subject matter.

 Teaching the Whole Child

In the development of the curriculum, experts often brainstorm on how best to distribute the composition of the totality of the human being into different parts of the curriculum (Noddings, 2005b). The curriculum is designed such that “graduates exhibit sound character, have a social conscience, think critically, are willing to make commitments, and are aware of global problems” (Soder et al, 2001). By asking the teacher to teach the whole child, the “whole” refers to collective parts and to ensure that every part is covered in the curriculum.

These parts are the child’s moral education so as to build her character; fitness education in order to capture the child health and nutrition and art education in order to build the artistic part of the child. For the teacher to teach the whole child, she is expected to teach the child all the aspects mentioned so that child will be totally made whole.

In evaluating the effectiveness of the teacher in teaching the whole child, the responsiveness of the student to moral issues and improvement in the child’s IQ may be used a basis to evaluate how effective the teacher is.

  

The Law not the Highest Aspiration of Morality

The law is not the highest aspiration of morality because law and morality belong to different realms. The society came about law because they wanted some things to be done in a particular way so law is made up of social norms. Its applicability is based on what is written and argued from time to time. It can be thwarted to favour the guilty. It can be a device in the hands of the oppressor if he knows and understand the art of manipulation. For instance, a terrorist may open fire on innocent people, killing many of them. If apprehended and taken to court, his lawyer may defend it that the culprit was not in his right mind while quoting some laws to back it up.

Conversely, morality is a consciousness of good or bad. It elicits emotions within humans so meanings are given to actions. Within every individual is a definition of standard of morality, in addition to what each country sets as its standard of morality. Taking the case of the terrorist mentioned above, it is morally wrong to open fire on a fellow human irrespective of the reason. If this case is to be judged in the court of ‘morality’, the culprit would always be the culprit, not the other way round.

Does the Public have the Right to Monitor the Criminal Justice Players? Why?

Yes the public has the right to monitor the criminal justice system. There is a saying that absolute power corrupts. The major players in the criminal justice system are the police, the court of law and the prison warders. The popularity of the police is with mixed feelings. There have been several cases of abuses in the police force which precipitated frequent negative media coverage because the media is a member of the public who believes that criminal justice players must be monitored (The Police Chief, 2009). Other members of the public also beilieve that it is their responsibility to monitor the major players of the judicial system.

Within the court, there have also been abuses among judges and prosecutors. Going by these abuses, it is therefore necessary to ensure close monitoring of criminal justice players because once they know they are being closely monitored, they tend to be in their best behavior.

Review of http://www.ratemycop.com

The website mentioned above is centered on reporting personal experience with the police. The reporting could be on the professionalism of the police, how fair the police conduct is and the reporter’s satisfaction level of the police conducts. By closely analyzing the premise of this website, it is all about reshaping the police force. This website provides a platform whereby either positive or negative feedback could be left for a police officer and these feedbacks keeps the police on their toes, knowing fully well that any manner of misconduct would be reported.

The activities of the users of this website and the thesis of the site have both advantages and disadvantages. On the side of the public who are the supposed reporters, the advantages are numerous. The number advantage is that it gives power to the public to demand the best professional conducts from the police.  Police’s misuse of power is drastically reduced. At the click of the mouse, complaints or commendation could be lodged and made public.

On the side of the police, the good eggs in the force get rewarded by public opinion. Their acts of professionalism are well reported as this can translate to promotion in the force, in addition to other benefits.  The downside of this website is that police officers could be witch-hunt by leaving a bad feedback for such officers. It could also be an avenue to post ridiculous verbal attacks on whomever any member of the public dislike.

Should videos of police officer be profiled on YouTube and other web sites?

Going by the video posted on http://www.youtube.Com /watch?v=9Gg WrV8TcUc, the question is whether such videos should be posted to any website at all. The answer to that is no. The reason being that while trying to shape and reshape the police force, there are territorial laws which are effective in some countries but lack power elsewhere. If videos like this are posted on websites, the real message the video is expected to pass across is lost to emotions. Again, it is not that the entire police force is bad but making posts like this creates a very bad image of the entire police force of such country or territory.  

Latest News in Town and how it Relates to the Police

One of the latest news that relates to police occurred in Chandler and Mesa. This relates to the activities of suspected arsonist when they set fire on vehicles. Those in the neighborhood gave the police emergency calls reporting these occurrences.   According to Sgt. Joe Favazzo, a Chandler Police Department spokesman, the strings of fires were connected but they had not made any arrest in this regard. Attempts to set some vehicles ablaze were also thwarted by the police. These are just some of the increasing occurrences lately.

In regards to the news, it says much about the criminal justice in the sense that the rapid responses of the police to the distress calls made to them portray the police in a good light, which is good. This may be largely due to the continued surveillance the public is putting on the police, thus bringing the out the best in the police.  Again, the relevance of this is that the police are ready to do a thorough cleanup of the bad media coverage. If this continues like this, the overall criminal justice system will receive a boost. 

References

Noddings, N. (Ed.). (2005b). Educating citizens for global awareness. New York: Teachers College Press.

Soder, R., Goodlad, J. I., & McMannon, T. J. (Eds.). (2001). Developing democratic character in the young. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The Police Chief, (June 06, 2009). The Media, the Public, and the Law Enforcement Community: Correcting Misperceptions. http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1828&issue_id=62009. Assessed September 14, 2012