buy custom Curriculum Guides on Writing, Spelling, Reading and Mathematics essay

buy custom Curriculum Guides on Writing, Spelling, Reading and Mathematics essay A curriculum guide is a plan on what subjects will be taught, how they will be taught and by whom they will be taught. It may be general or specific and is a determinant on what ways materials are taught to diverse groups of students (Tannehill Lund, 2010). In most cases, public schools setup curriculum guides for every individual subject and the guides are used as a trajectory of the expected standards of performance in the school. That is, the performance levels that are expected of students. The guides may specify the core concepts that must be taught within a given time limit and provide recommendations on the teaching method s that will appeal to a given group of students. Curriculum guides should embrace objectivity and proper goals if academic excellence is to be achieved (Glass Strickland, 2009). They should consider the students educational and social needs based on the age group. In addition, they should be based on content standards, thinking skills and mind habits as well as promote collaborative teaching, learning and assessment opportunities that enable all students to achieve high standards. This paper develops curriculum guides for reading, writing, spelling and mathematics in a way that promotes learning in the classroom situation. In the context of curriculum guide development, the teacher has the responsibility of teaching and following up on the pupils through mentorship sessions so that specific student needs are taken care of (Mattison, OShea Rowe, 2002). The teacher also has the responsibility of building students based on individual student assets. Assessment is done on a continuous basis to find out how much is being learnt. Apart from periodical assessments of written and oral tests, the teacher will provide end of lesson assignments which the students must do and submit results within a given timeline. There will also be end of year exams which will examine students strengths and weaknesses (Malloy, 2006). Curriculum Guide on Reading, Spelling and Writing for Grade One Pupils Objective: At the end of the learning year, the pupils are expected to be in a position to write a large proportion of correctly spelt high frequency words. In addition, the pupil should be able to write text that is readable by others regardless of the spelling of words. There should also be phonetic representation in the text. The pupil should also be able to draw a range of resources for deciding on how to spell unfamiliar words such as matching familiar words and word parts. The pupil should automatically and correctly spell words that are used commonly. Presentation of what is to be learnt within the clarified periods Class: Grade one period activity One week Letter formation of single letters Three days Students use magnetic letters to build words Three days Students sort words in a pocket chart Two days Writing and checking of spellings Two days Friends check on what others have done Four days Spelling Two days syllables Three days Name building To days Matching of names and pictures Three days Sorting names by categories Two days Sorting names by gender Two days Sorting names on a chart Two days Identifying consonants Four days Sorting names by how they end Three days Sorting of names that have double consonants One week Introduction to vowels Two weeks Syllables and their separation by line Ten days Naming of objects One week Sorting of attributes Two weeks Writing of words Two and a half weeks Word building One week Making of syllable breaks Curriculum Guide for Mathematics This guide provides direction on what a grade one student should know at the end of the academic year of doing mathematics (Maxwell, Mendez, Goldsmith Sorenson, 2001). At the end of the teaching period, the student should be able to have basic knowledge on addition and subtraction, measurements, place value and spatial understanding of geometry. The student should also know weights in terms of what is heavy or light and build number sense. Objective: The student is expected to have all rounded information on numbers, basic algebra, basic geometry, measurement and introductory probability. Given that grade 2 students are relatively young, the curriculum will engage the children in hands on activities. They will use manipulative aspects such as identification of numerals, writing of the memorized numerals, understanding one to one correspondence, describing positional words, sequencing events, completing simple patterns and addition and subtraction among other things. Here is a diagrammatic presentation of what is expected of students in Grade 1 in Mathematics as adopted from Team (2008). Time Objectives 4 weeks Number sense: count forward and backward, connect numerals and number words represented. 5 weeks Foundations of addition and subtraction, number words and ordinals: represent real life number stories, describe addition and subtraction using manipulatives, use two or three addends 3 weeks Fluency in addition and subtraction and introduction to geometry: solve addition and/or subtraction problems using one or two digit numbers, develop an understanding of fractions by dividing objects into equal parts. 3 weeks Spatial understanding of geometry, place value, counting: describe characteristics andd properties of two and three dimensional geometric shapes, explain similarities and differences in plane and solid shapes, recognize and name environmental shapes 4 weeks Measurements and operational extensions: use the calendar to identify the day, month and year as well as the day before, the day after among other things. Collect data from the environment. Rubric of Assessment and Evaluation A rubric is a tool that is used to assess several types of assignments including written work, projects and speeches among other things (Harrison 2001, 12). Rubrics are an excellent way to grading assignments that can lead to subjective grading. Rubrics ought to be given to students before the completion of course work so that they have knowledge on how they will be assessed (Bondi Wiles, 2011). In both the above subjects: mathematics and writing, spelling and reading there will be two continuous assessment tests and one final examination. The continuous assessment test will all account to 40% of the overall grade whereas the final exam will contribute to 60% of the final grade. For mathematics, the grades will be auto summed to a hundred percent mark. In the languages (reading, writing and spelling) however, there will be both oral presentations and written tests. Oral presentation in the two continuous assessment tests will amount to a total of 15% of the total grade. Oral presentations in the examinations will also contribute to 15% of the overall grade. In essence, oral presentations contribute to 30% of the overall grade in writing, spelling and reading tests. The following is a breakdown of the distribution of grades across the subjects covered with a basis on the guidelines provided by Soven McLeod (1992). Breakdown of Distribution of Marks for Grading subject nature Contribution Overall effect Reading, writing and spelling Continuous assessment tests NB: these are grades for two continuous assessment tests Oral presentations:15% Written work: 15% 30% Final examination Oral presentation:15% Written exams: 55% 70% Mathematics Continuous assessment tests NB: these are grades for two continuous assessment tests Counting and symbols: 20% Written arithmetic: 10% 30% Final examination Counting and identification of symbols: 20% Written arithmetic:50% 70% Conclusion A curriculum should be purposeful, rigorous and related to the real world. It should focus on developing complex and critical thinking skills of individual students thereby helping them develop deeper creativity in the subjects of study. In addition, it should integrate themes, essential questions and standards into the daily work of students. It should also be class specific and coherent both in writing and implementation. 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Interesting Quotes From Novel Alas, Babylon

Interesting Quotes From Novel 'Alas, Babylon' Pat Franks classic novel Alas, Babylon  is filled with provocative quotes. Published in  1959, the book  takes place in Florida and is  centered around the Braggs. One of the first novels of the nuclear age, Alas, Babylon has a distinctly  post-apocalyptic bent. With this roundup of quotes, categorized by chapter, familiarize yourself with the prose that made this novel so unique.   Chapters 1-2 Urgent you meet me at Base Ops McCoy noon today. Helen and children flying to Orlando tonight. Alas Babylon. (Ch. 1)Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour is thy judgment come. (Ch. 2)Sure. Time-on-target. You dont fire everything at the same instant. You shoot it so it all arrives on target at the same instant.  (Ch. 2) Chapters 4-5 Peewee may be a mouse aboard ship, but hes a tiger in a Tiger. If I sent him up with orders to shoot down the moon, hed try. (Ch. 4)So here comes our local Paul Revere, he greeted Randy. What are you trying to do, frighten my wife and daughter to death?  (Ch. 4)Ben Franklin, staring to the south, said, I dont see any mushroom cloud. Dont they always have a mushroom cloud?  (Ch. 5)Edgar hesitated. To refuse to cash government savings bonds was fiduciary sacrilege so awful that the possibility never before had entered his head. Yet here he was, faced with it. No, he decided, we dont cash any bonds. Tell those individuals that we wont cash any bonds until we find out where the government stands, or if.  (Ch. 5) Chapters 6-9 As Chief Executive of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, I hereby declare a state of unlimited national emergency until such time as new elections are held, and Congress reconvenes. (Ch. 6)Whos winning? Nobodys winning. Cities are dying and ships are sinking and aircraft is going in, but nobodys winning.  (Ch. 6)In four months, Randy said, weve regressed four thousand years. More, maybe. Four thousand years ago the Egyptians and Chinese were more civilized than Pistolville is right now. Not only Pistolville. Think what must be going on in those parts of the country where they dont even have fruit and pecans and catfish.  (Ch. 8)I think most of us sensed this truth, but we could not accept it. You see, no matter how well we understood the truth it was necessary that the Kremlin understand it too. It takes two to make a peace but only one to make a war. So all we could do, while vowing not to strike first, was line up our lead soldiers. (Ch. 9)It was a w olf, Randy said. It wasnt a dog any longer. In times like these dogs can turn into wolves. You did just right, Ben. Here, take back your gun. (Ch. 9) Chapters 10-13 No. A company under martial law. So far as I know Im the only active Army Reserve officer in town so I guess its up to me.  (Ch. 10)The end of the corn and exhaustion of the citrus crop had been inevitable. Armadillos in the yams was bad luck, but bearable. But without fish and salt their survival was in doubt. (Ch. 12)Ben Franklin was credited with discovering a new source of food, and was a hero. Peyton was only a girl, fit for sewing, pot washing, and making beds.  (Ch. 12)It was proof that the government of the United States still functioned. It was also useful as toilet paper. Next day, ten leaflets would buy an egg, and fifty a chicken. It was paper, and it was money. (Ch. 13)We won it. We really clobbered em! Harts eyes lowered and his arms drooped. He said, Not that it matters. (Ch. 13)

Fallacies exercise Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Fallacies exercise - Assignment Example proverbial cat is already out of the bag, the codification of such a thing as â€Å"animal rights† could potentially lead to consequences that all but the most careless rat-lover would find dire. Certainly if merely gouging a nickel-sized hole in an elephant’s shoulder is the act of a criminal, then hunters should be charged with murder, road kill is manslaughter, and owning a dog an act of involuntary servitude. Scott McPherson This statement commits the slippery slope fallacy, which means that the speaker interprets a simple statement in very general terms and exaggerating it in the process. The definition of animal rights here is exaggerated and its exceptions are not considered by the speaker in that even benevolent acts like owning a dog, unintentional acts like road kill, and purposeful acts for the benefit of mankind like hunting are all considered violations of animal rights. Although this statement also commits the other fallacies of begging the question, non sequitur and false analogy, it is clearly a hasty generalization. The claim of the speaker that the particular university is not recommended is obviously not valid for it is based on but two people. There must be a considerable number of students in a sample plus backing of research before one can make a valid claim that one university cannot be recommended. This statement is a sweeping generalization. Such a fallacy is committed in this statement because the speaker had already labeled all churchgoers as mindless and old even before the actual disadvantages of going to mass or going to church (if ever there are any) were underlined. As far as I know, this statement commits the Red herring fallacy. Instead of the speaker explaining the disadvantages of President Obama’s reversal of President Bush’s ruling on stem cell research, the speaker befogs the issue by tossing out the red herring of his support for President Bush. 8. â€Å"Ugandas controversial ethics and integrity minister†¦ said

Managing Activiies to Achieve Results Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Managing Activiies to Achieve Results - Essay Example Here, for this assignment, this author has chosen the example of a pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, where these themes are equally applicable. Pharmaceutical industry is highly competitive, and every step of functioning in this industry is governed by business process management to improve products and services to the customer with maximal efficiency. An efficient system must be usable, and people must be convinced about the usefulness of it. Thus the developmental journey must be people centric, where the trench people must not feel excluded. They need to be consulted, listened to, trained and communicated with on a regular basis. They must understand the business process and its benefits. Conviction of people about the reasons of the process change, the necessity of it would promote them to take ownership and responsibility. The organisational structure would enable that. The organisational structure and culture are important parameters and preconditions for fostering an environment where people would understand clearly what is expected of them and how they are significant in the new structure and process (Morrill, 2008). There are many components in the structure and culture. The components are logically connected in such a way that there is a meaningful concept of fitment among the different components of organisational struc ture and the cultural settings. In the stated organisation, the decision makers implement change processes interpret and utilise the environmental culture to shape the organisational structure. Sometimes depending on the situation, a double-loop change process is utilised where within the organisational structure, the members of one culture impose their favoured structures on organisational members coming from different cultures. Sometimes, again depending on the situation, the organisational hierarchy utilises the naturally socially constructed organisational structure and culture (Walsh, 2004). Mission and Aim of Organisation and Effects on Structure and Culture The objective and aim of the organisation has important impacts on its culture and structure. If by organisational structure we mean formalisation and centralisation and if organisational culture means participative decision making, support and collaboration, and learning and development, both must interrelate. The aim and objective of this organisation is to produce innovative pharmaceutical products, and thus it means technological processes, administrative control, and product manufacturing. Studies by Jantan et al. (2003) have shown that both participation in decision making and support and collaboration and learning and development have demonstrable positive effects on administrative innovation. Although structural variables appear to be unaffected, they may affect the cultural variables (Jantan et al., 2003). Bate et al. (2000) highlights the role of aims and goals of an organisation in shaping the structure and

School Prayer & the US Constitution Essay Example for Free

School Prayer the US Constitution Essay Prelude There was a lot of happening in 1960’s, or so it seems. The lawyers, the clerics, the socialists, the politicians, the religious activists and the common public; they all appeared to have something critical, urgent and spat on their agenda; rather exceedingly controversial and notorious matter; the Prayer in Schools. Court prohibits Prayer in Schools Originally, the Warren Court of the 1960s declared prayer in public schools unconstitutional. By examining St. Louis Post-Dispatch, we can cover the story that Court ruled out Prayer in Schools emphasizing state is faithful to an arrangement of a neutral stance. The Supreme Court held June 17, 1963 wrap up that Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer as exercises in public schools is unconstitutional. The decision came on the last day of the courts 1962-63 term. It proclaimed adjournment until October. The vote was 8 to 1, with Justice Tom C. Clark writing the majority opinion and Justice Potter Stewart delivering the balk. Justice William Joseph Brennan Jr. wrote a long agreement in the mainstream outlook as did Justices Arthur J. Goldberg and Justice John Marshall Harlan. The court ruled on two appeals openly concerning attacks on such daily prayer and Bible readings at opening exercises in public schools in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Conversely, the decision had a far- reaching effect on such practices in public schools across the land. The officially permitted inquiry concerned with the cases was whether such school recitals abuse the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which says, â€Å"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.† Justice Clark declared that both the Maryland and Pennsylvania cases could be disposed of in the equivalent belief because they heaved the similar fundamental pronouncement under vaguely dissimilar realistic circumstances. Clark said in the light of the history of the First Amendment and of the cases inferring and affecting its necessities, jury hold that the practices at issue and the laws requiring them are unconstitutional under the establishment clause, under the Fourteenth Amendment of US Constitution. In an earlier case, the court decided June 25, 1962, that the use in New York public schools of a nondenominational prayer which had been composed by state officials violated the First Amendment. The verdict in the New York case was 6 to 1, with Justice Stewart the lone dissenter. Justice Hugo Black was the author of the majority opinion. Justice Felix Frankfurter was ill at the time and did not participate. He later resigned and was succeeded by Justice Arthur Goldberg. Justice Byron R. White, new on the court, did not participate because he did not hear the arguments that preceded the ruling. Justice Clark wrote in 1963 decision that the place of religion in our society is an exalted one, achieved through a long tradition of reliance on the home, the church and the inviolable citadel of the individual heart and mind. In the relationship between man and religion, the state is firmly committed to a position of neutrality. Though the application of that rule requires interpretation of a delicate sort, the rule itself is clearly and concisely stated in the words of the First Amendment. In his dissent, Justice Stewart declared it was a â€Å"fallacious oversimplification† to observe supplies of the First Amendment as launching a single constitutional standard of â€Å"separation of church and state† which can be useful perfunctorily in every case to outline the requisite limitations between government and religion. He err in the first place if they do not recognize, as a matter of history and a matter of the imperatives of the free society, that religion and government must necessarily cooperate in innumerable customs. Although, the previous court decisions have made clear that there is no constitutional bar to use of government property for religious purposes, he said that previous cour t decisions relating to the public schools systems were inadequate to religious instruction or proselytizing actions of religious sects by chucking the weight of secular authority in the wake of the broadcasting the religious doctrine. He saw no danger to the government or religion in the exercises involved in the Maryland and Pennsylvania cases because they involved only a reading of the Bible single handed by remarks which otherwise constitute instruction. He felt the records of the Maryland and Pennsylvania cases were so essentially scarce as to make impossible an informed or accountable resolve of the constitutional issues offered. He didn’t agree that on the records they can say that the establishment clause has necessarily been violated. He favored sending both the Maryland and Pennsylvania cases back to the lower courts for taking of additional evidence. In the Maryland case, Mrs. Madalyn E. Murray and her 16-year-old son, identifying themselves as atheists, attacked constitutionality of a Baltimore city school board regulation. The regulation called for daily opening exercises of Bible reading and recitation of the Lords Prayer. Objecting students are permitted to be excused from the exercises. Maryl ands court of appeals, by a 4-to-3 vote, ruled against objections by the Murrays. The state court said the Constitutions First amendment was not â€Å"intended to stifle all rapport between religion and government.† Counsel for the Murrays argued before the Supreme Court that the Maryland practice breached the figurative wall between church and state. The court was told that the son, William Murray, had been wounded by the practice in that he had lost caste, had been spat on, and was assailed by fellow students of William. In the Pennsylvania case, a three-judge United States district court in Philadelphia unanimously sustained protestations to a state law requiring Bible reading daily at opening exercises of the schools.(Woods) Historical perspective of the US Constitution When the Constitutional Convention initially gathered in Philadelphia in 1787, the spiritual backdrop of the states was diverse. Most states gave authorized gratitude to one recognized spiritual value. For Instance, The state of Virginia, accepted the â€Å"Episcopal Church† as re presentative of the state. Spiritual belief as a central part of colonial life was not in query. Somewhat, sacred matters that occured among states centered on the variations amid states’ conventional values. The political scene also turned off scripts of disunity. The Articles of Confederation had proved insufficient for governing, and the states were aggressive over issues of taxation—namely, which should pay the costs incurred by the Revolutionary War. As the Constitutional Convention assembled, observers supposed the thought of a Constitution, much less a nation, was delicate and quickly fading. Presided by George Washington, this conference of some of the original Founders was observed as a last endeavor for unity. During the Constitutional Convention, states quarreled and self-interest thrived, to the point that no progress was being made. It was then that an aged Ben Franklin stood and said: In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor  ¼ and have we no w forgotten this powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: ‘that God governs in the affairs of man.’ And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business â€Å" The 81-year-old Benjamin Franklin was not one of the more religiously-minded Founding Fathers—he actually believed more in the rational views of the French Enlightenment—yet he was willing to acknowledge the importance of prayer to the political aspirations of a nation. Not a prayer bound to a denomination, like the states already had, but prayer that acknowledged God as the Creator and Sustainer, prayer that outmoded the trivial blocs of authoritatively standard foundations. (MacLeod 1) Landmark Cases of Supreme Court ENGEL V. VITALE (1962) The Regents School Prayer What authority, if any, does the government have when it comes religious rituals lik e prayers? Can a government write specific prayers for public school students to recite every day? That used to be the case in many places in America, but that was challenged and ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court. This is one of the most important cases in the history of the Supreme Court’s church/state decisions. The State Board of Regents, which had supervisory power over New York public schools, had become concerned about an apparent decline in the morality of school students and so began a program of â€Å"moral and spiritual training† in the schools. This program included a prayer every morning which the Regents themselves had composed in a nondenominational form. Labeled the â€Å"To whom it may concern† prayer by one commentator, it stated: Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country. A group of 10 parents were joined by the ACLU in a suit against the Board of Education of New Hyde Park, New York because they had adopted that prayer. Amicus curiae briefs were filed by the American Ethical Union, the American Jewish Committee and the Synagogue Council of America. Both the state court and the New York Court of Appeals allowed the prayer to be recited. Arguments were made on April 3rd, 1962. On June 25, 1962, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 1 that it was unconstitutional for a government agency like a school or government agents like public school employees to require students to recite prayers. In his majority opinion, Justice Black sided substantially with the arguments of the separationists, who quoted heavily from Thomas Jefferson and made extensive use of his â€Å"wall of separation† metaphor. Particular emphasis was placed upon James Madison’s â€Å"Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments.† According to Black, the governmentally created prayer recitation is much like the English creation of the Book of Common Prayer. It was to avoid exactly this type of relationship between government and organized religion that many early colonists came to America. In his words, the prayer was â€Å"a practice wholly i nconsistent with the Establishment Clause.† Although the Regents argued that there was no compulsion on students to recite the prayer, Black observed that: Neither the fact that the prayer may be denominationally neutral nor the fact that its observances on the part of students are voluntary can serve to free it from the limitations of the Establishment Clause The Establishment clause is violated regardless of whether there is any â€Å"showing of direct government compulsionwhether those laws operate directly to coerce non-observing individuals or not.† As if he anticipated the harsh public reaction, Black attempted to point out that the decision shows great respect for religion, not hostility. It is neither sacrilegious nor anti-religious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance. This case was one of the first in a series of cases, many in the 1960s, in which a variety of religious activities sponsored by the government were found to violate the Establishment Clause. This was the first case which effectively prohibited the government from sponsoring or endorsing official prayers in schools, not Abington School District v. Schempp (from the following year) as is commonly thought. People were outraged that official prayers were no longer permitted in schools, although their anger was directed mostly at the cases which were decided in the following years. Representative of most reactions was a statement from evangelist Billy Graham, who still opposes church/state separation even today: â€Å" This is another step toward the secularization of the United States. [] The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion†. Engel v. Vitale got the ball rolling on the separation of church and state in the latter half of the 20th century. (Cline, About: Agnosticism / Atheism) ABINGTON SCHOOL DIST. v. SCHEMPP MURRAY v. CURLETT (1963) Since of the embargo of the First Amendment against the acting out by C ongress of any law respecting an establishment of religion, which is made valid to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, no state law or school board may require that passages from the Bible be read or that the Lords Prayer be recited in the public schools of a State at the beginning of each school day even if individual students may be excused from attending or participating in such exercises upon written request of their parents. Mutually these cases transactc with â€Å"state-approved reading of Bible passages† before classes in public schools. Schempp was conveye to trial by a religious family who had dropped a line to the ACLU. The Schempps defied a Pennsylvania law which declared that: at least ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school day. Any child shall be excused from such Bible reading, or attending such Bible reading, upon written request of his parent or guardian. A federal district court banned this. Murray was conveyed to trial by an atheist: Madalyn Murray (later OHair), who was functioning on the part of her sons, William and Garth. Murray defied a Baltimore statute that supplied for the reading, without comment, of a chapter of the Holy Bible and/or of the Lords Prayer before the start of classes. This act was sustained by both a state court and the Maryland Court of Appeals in the Supreme Court. Opinions for both cases were taken notice of on the 27th and 28th of February, 1963. On the 17th of June, 1963, the Court ruled 8-1 against of allowing the re citing of the Bible verses and the Lords Prayer. Justice Clark wrote at length in his majority opinion about the history and significance of religion in America, but his finale was that the Constitution prohibits any concern of religion, that prayer is a form of religion, and that hence state- sponsored or mandated prayer in public schools cannot be permissible. For the foremost moment, an examination was formed to assess Establishment questions ahead of courts: what are the purpose and primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution. That is to say that to withstand the structures of the Establishment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion. [emphasis added] Justice Brennan wrote in a concurring opinion that, while legislators argued that they had a secular purpose with their law, their goals could have been achieved with readings from secular document. The law, however, only specified the use of religious literature and prayer. That the Bible readings were to be made without comment demonstrated even further that the legislators knew that they were dealing with specifically religious literature and wanted to avoid sectarian interpre tations. A violation of the Free Exercise Clause was also created by the coercive effect of the readings. That this might demand only minor encroachments on the First Amendment, as argued by others, was unrelated. The proportional study of religious conviction in public schools is not forbidden but those religious adherences were not crafted with such visions in mentality. ABINGTON SCHOOL DIST. v. SCHEMPP was fundamentally a replicate of the Courts earlier Court Decision in Engel v. Vitale, in which the Court acknowledged constitutional violations and struck the legislation. As with Engel, the Court held that the voluntary nature of religious exercises (even allowing parents to exempt their children) did not avert the statutes from violating the Establishment Clause. There was, of course, an intensely negative public reaction. In May 1964, there were more than 145 proposed constitional amendments in the House of Representatives which would permit school prayer and effectively reverse both decisions. Representative L. Mendell Rivers accused the Court of legislating they never adjudicate with one eye on the Kremlin and the other on the NAACP. Cardinal Spellman claimed that the decision struck at the very heart of the Godly tradition in which Americas children have for so long been raised. Although people frequently argue that Murray, who later instituted the American Atheists, was the women who got prayer put the boot of public schools and, it should be apparent that even had she never survived, the Schempp case still would have approached to the Supreme Court in some moment in time . (Cline, About: Agnosticism / Atheism) LEMON v. KURTZMAN (1971) There are a lot of people in America who would like to see the government provide funding to private, religious schools. Critics argue that this would violate the separation of church and state and sometimes the courts agree with this position. This was actually three separate cases: Lemon v. Kurtzman, Earley v. DiCenso, and Robinson v. DiCenso. These cases from Pennsylvania and Rhode Island were joined together because they all involved public assistance to private schools, some of which were religious. The final decision has become known by the first case in the list: Lemon v. Kurtzman. Pennsylvania’s law provided for paying the salaries of teachers in parochial schools and assisting the purchasing of textbooks or other teaching supplies, as required by Pennsylvania’s Non-Public Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968. In Rhode Island, the 15% of the salaries of private school teachers was paid by the government as mandated by the Rhode Island Salary Supplement Act of 1969. In both cases the teachers were teaching secular, not religious, subjects. Arguments were made on March 3rd, 1971. On June 28th, 1971, the Supreme Court unanimously found that direct government assistance to religious schools was unconstitutional. In the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Burger, the Court created what has become known as the â€Å"Lemon Test† for deciding if a law is in violation of the Establishment Clause. Accepting the secular purpose attached to both statutes by the legislature, the Court did not pass on the secular effect test, inasmuch as excessive entanglement was found. This entanglement arose because the legislature has not, and could not, provide state aid on the basis of a mere assumption that secular teachers under religious discipline can avoid conflicts. The State must be certain, given the Religion Clauses, that subsidized teachers do not inculcate religion. Because the schools concerned were religious schools, because they were under the control of the church hierarchy, and because the primary purpose of the schools was the propagation of the faith, a comprehensive, discriminating, and continuing state surveillance will inevitably be required to ensure that these restrictions [on religious utilization of aid] are obeyed and the First Amendment otherwise respected. This sort of relationship could lead to any number of political problems in areas in which a large numbers of students attend religious schools — just the sort of situation that the First Amendment was designed to prevent. Chief Justice Burger further wrote: Every analysis in this area must begin with consideration of the cumulative criteria developed by the Court over many years. First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances or inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster and excessive government Entanglement with religion. The â€Å"excessive entanglement† criteria was a new addition to the other two, which had already been created in the Abington Township School District v. Schempp. The two statutes in question were held to be in violation of this third criteria. This decision is especially significant because it created the aforementioned Lemon Test for evaluating laws relating to the relationship between church and state. It is a benchmark for all later decisions regarding religious liberty some people love it, some hate it. (Cline, About: Agnosticism / Atheism) Court Tests Applied to Legislation Affecting Religion The Lemon Test Founded on the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Court will regulate a practice unconstitutional if: 1) It lacks any secular purpose. That is, if the practice lacks any non-religious purpose. 2) The practice either promotes or inhibits religion. 3) Or the practice excessively (in the Courts opinion) involves government with a religion. The Coercion Test Based on the 1992 case of Lee v. Weisman, the religious practice is examined to see to what extent, if any, pressure is applied to force or coerce individuals to participate. The Court has defined that Unconstitutional coercion occurs when: (1) the government directs (2) a formal religious exercise (3) in such a way as to oblige the participation of objectors. The Endorsement Test Finally, drawing from the 1989 case of Allegheny County v. ACLU, the practice is examined to see if it unconstitutionally endorses religion by conveying a message that religion is favored, preferred, or promoted over other beliefs. The Establishment Clause and the Lemon Tests Based on its 1971 decision in the case of Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Supreme Court came up with the three tests of any religion-related law. The Lemon test is still used by the Court today to determine whether or not the law meets constitutional muster. In order for any law to satisfy the First Amendment, it: 1) Must have some secular, or non-religious legal purpose; 2) must neither promote or inhibit the practice of religion; and 3) must not must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion. In its Lemon decision, the Supreme Court concludes, [i]f a statute violates any of these three principles, it must be struck down under the Establishment Clause. Lemon Test v. The Ten Commandments When viewed against the Lemon tests, the first four of the Ten Commandments would fail because they have no secular, or non-religious legal purpose. Instead, they concern only specific religious duties expected of believers. 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the wa ter under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain. 4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. However, commandments 5-10, taken by themselves, make no mention of religion at all. Instead, they are all rules of proper conduct by people in society and are thus completely secular in nature. 5. Honour thy father and thy mother. 6. Thou shalt not kill. 7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 8. Thou shalt not steal. 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbours. But, the Aderholt Amendment did not rule out the first four commandments from contemplation. The 284 U.S. Representatives vote for it. They drew from the expressions of the people who engraved the Constitution. (US Govt. Info, Court Tests) Separation of Church and State Separation of church and state is not even stated i n the U.S. Constitution, since its drafters did not perceive a dichotomy between their religious beliefs and the manuscript that constructed their Republic. However separation of church and state came primarily from two sources, a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to a group of ministers and from the U.S. Supreme Court case, Everson v. Board of Education. The Danbury Letter. Thomas Jefferson wrote the famous phrase separation of church and state in a letter to the Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut. He was responding to the letter they had written, part of which said: Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty—That Religion is at all times and places a Matter between God and Individuals—That no man ought to suffer in Name, person or effects on account of his religious Opinions—That the legitimate Power of civil Government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. Jefferson’s response to their letter was amicable. He said, Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions [emphasis added], I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. Jefferson’s declaration of a wall of separation between Church and State expressed his opinion that the federal government did not have the auth ority to prescribe even occasional performances of [religious] devotion. He did not question the validity of religious belief, but he constructed his wall to protect religious freedom of conscience from the potential of one federally recognized religion. His fears were well founded. In his Inaugural Address of the previous year, Jefferson had noted that America had banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered. Clearly, Jefferson decried the federal domination of religious freedom through one established church. In addition, when Jefferson founded the University of Virginia, the Pamphlet of University Regulations included two sections that read: No compulsory attendance on prayers or services. Each denomination to send a clergyman to conduct daily prayers and Sunday service for two weeks. Was this a man who would have sanctioned the complete removal of any form of prayer from the public schools of America? Obviously, Thomas Jefferson’s views on church and state have been grossly distorted. Everson v. Board of Education. The second notable mention of the phrase separation of church and state came in the 1947 U.S. Supreme Court case, Everson v. Board of Education. The plaintiff argued the New Jersey law that reimbursed parents for the cost of bus transportation—to public and religious schools—violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court said that it did not. In the majority opinion, however, Justice Hugo Black used language to set the stage for damaging rulings in the future. He wrote that the Establishment Clause created a complete separation between the state and religion. Jefferson’s letter was written 10 years after the ratification of the First Amendment, yet Black relied upon his own interpretation of Jefferson’s words, rather than on the text of the First Amendment, to set the Everson precedent for future rulings. Twentieth-Century Cases Twentieth-century courts, based predominately on Jefferson’s l etter and on the precedent Justice Black created in Everson, have argued that the Constitution intended to separate all religious expression from public life. Yet that ignores the textual history and the original intent of James Madison, the author of these religion clauses. It also ignores the broad, historical context. The men who hammered out each section of the Constitution also believed in the importance of daily prayer. The Establishment Clause has often been misinterpreted to mean that any link to religion is establishing religion. One of the causes of this is a simple alteration of the wording in the First Amendment. The clause reads, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. It does not read, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, as it is often misquoted. If the article is read as the, then it refers to establishment of all religion in general. If the article is an, then it clearly refers to a specific religion or denomination—an interpretation backed up by historical records. Realizing that the amendment uses the word an helps clarify the meaning of the Framers. So, rather than attempting to separate themselves from religious belief and expression, the Framers were trying to keep one denomination from being favored over another. The twentieth-century cases pertinent to the issue of school prayer do not recognize those differences. They have clearly been built upon the framework created by Everson, as summaries of key cases demonstrate: McCollum v. Board of Education (1948). It is a violation of the Establishment Clause for Jewish, Catholic or Protestant religious leaders to lead optional/voluntary religious instruction in public school buildings. Engel v. Vitale (1962). The daily recitation of prayer in public schools is unconstitutional. Abington School District v. Schempp (1963). Daily school-directed reading of the Bible (without comment), and daily recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, violates the Establishment Clause when performed in public schools. Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). This ruling created the three-part Lemon test for determin ing violations of the Establishment Clause. Stone v. Graham (1980). The Court struck down a state law requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments (with a notice of secular application). Wallace v. Jaffree (1985). A state law requiring a moment of meditation or voluntary prayer was struck down as an establishment of religion because the intent of the legislature was deemed to be religious rather than secular. By Justice Stevens scripting the mass judgment, the Court decided 6-3 that the Alabama law providing for a moment of silence was unconstitutional. The decision underlined that inspection the Supreme Court apply while assessing the constitutionality of government actions. Pretty than allow the argument that the inclusion of or voluntary prayer was a slight accumulation with a bit realistic implication, the goal of the legislature that approved it was adequate to display the unconstitutionality of prayer. Lee v. Weisman (1992). A private, nongovernmental individual (in this case a rabbi) at a public school graduation cannot offer prayer. Student rights were infringed upon, according to the Court, because the important nature of the event in effect compelled them to attend graduation. That, in effect, compelled students to bow their heads and be respectful during the prayer, which the Court ruled was a constitutional violation. Santa Fe Independent School District v. Jane Doe (2000). The Court struck down a school district’s policy that allowed an elected student chaplain to open football games with a public prayer. Even though high school football games are purely voluntary activities, the Court concluded that the policy establishes an improper majoritarian election on religion, and unquestionably has the purpose and creates the perception of encouraging the delivery of prayer at a series of important school events. Each of those cases paid attention on the Establishment Clause to the damage of the Free Exercise Clause. That has been the trend of the twentieth century. The courts have too quickly forgotten that the Constitution explicitly protects the free exercise of religion. (MacLeod 2-3) â€Å"The earlier cases were more black and white, and the later ones were more grey in terms of the issues: Stink of Unfairness in Later School Prayer Cases† The era of 1980s instigated with a diktat not in favor of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, and by 1985 even so much as one minute of silence, for meditation or prayer by students, turned out to be inviolable; even though firm decisions delivered by the supreme court (see Engel v. Vitale. Abington School District v. Schempp, Lemon v. Kurtzman). Engel v. Vitale case was one of the first in its origin in which a range of holy conducts backed by the government were found to defy the Establishment Clause. This was the first case which successfully forbidden the government from sponsoring or endorsing official prayers in schools, not Abington School District v. Schempp which is frequently considered. Public were irritated that official prayers were no longer legalized in schools, although their anger was directed mostly at the cases which were decided in the following years. Delegates of most reactions were a declaration from evangelist Billy Graham, who still refuses to accept church/state separation yet at present. Abington School District v. Schempp case was fundamentally a consequence of the Courts earlier Court Decision in Engel v. Vitale, in which the Court recognized constitutional violations and struck the legislation. As with Engel, the Court held that the voluntary nature of religious exercises. There was, of course, an hugely harmful public behaviour. In May 1964, there were more than 145 proposed constitional amendments in the House of Representatives which would permit sch ool prayer and successfully overturn both verdicts. Lemon v. Kurtzman decision was particularly noteworthy because it created the aforementioned Lemon Test for assessing laws relating to the relationship between church and state. It is a yardstick for all later decisions concerning religion freedom. By the turn of the 21st century the extirpation of faithfulness from government schools had been merged, and the mugging on religion in public life fanned out into society at large. Proclamations were subjected exalting vice and suppressing virtue. The year2004 saw the outrage of despair, elevated to a â€Å"full right† under the Constitution, even as God’s Ten Commandments were driven off public property. In the supreme court of Alabama the Chief Justice dared to resist, and was stripped of his office. The judicial oligarchy forced all these changes in the name of the Constitution. The school cases were precise to the establishment clause of the First Amendment. So far the Amendment has a complimentary implement of religion clause, which the politburo of nine has elected to downplay or minimally ignorant. For instance, the Lee v. Weisman decision failed to reverse the standards established by the Court in Lemon. Instead, this ruling extended the prohibition of school prayer to graduation ceremonies and refused to accept the idea that a student would not be harmed by standing during the prayer without sharing the message contained in the prayer. Similarly, Upon reading Santa Fe, Ingebretsen, and Clear Creek II, it seems, with regard to the Establishment Clause, that panels of our court pay little regard to previous jurisprudence. One might think that a specific holding of a prior opinion is no more than a puff of wind. Santa Fe disregards Clear Creek II today. The next panel can disregard Santa Fe tomorrow. When judges can pick and choose without the constraints imposed by precedent, the public is left stranded, vulnerable to liability, helplessly dependent on the panel it draws. We could fulfill our constitutional and professional duty to the public, vote this case en banc, and be of a single voice. But when our court refuses to rehear en banc cases such as Santa Fe, this unrestrained decision-making goes uncorrected. This failure to act, in turn, allows individual members of our court to continue to engage in an activity that has all the appearance of simply advancing personal philosophy. The Alito Nomination: Chief Justice John Roberts and future Justice Samuel Alito probably mean a more conservative Supreme Court. But it probably doesn’t mean a stream of clear-cut conservative breakthroughs on abortion, affirmative action, school prayer or even flag burning. The future of constitutional rulings on those and other hot button issues will be determined by two words: Anthony Kennedy. That’s an oversimplification of course. But it seems likely that on a number of issues, there will be four conservatives, four liberals and there will be Justice Kennedy. Unlike Roberts and Alito who went to lengths to leave the world guessing about how they will rule, we know a lot about what Anthony Kennedyism means because he has already faced these issues as a justice. It means Roe v. Wade isn’ t overturned, but partial birth abortion is banned and other abortion restrictions are accepted. Affirmative action is more constrained but not ruled unconstitutional. State-sponsored displays of religious symbols are more likely to be tolerated, but the ban on school prayer is not overturned. Burning a U.S. flag to protest, and viewing pornography on the internet continue to be constitutionally protected activities but McCain-Feingold- type regulations on political campaigning are vulnerable to First Amendment challenges. On the first day of the Alito hearings, Sen. Joseph Biden, D.-Del., said that the â€Å"elephant in the room†¿ was the question of whether Alito would cast the decisive votes to reject the direction in which the Supreme Court has been going for the past 70 years. Over the next two and a half days, Alito endorsed some of those precedents (Brown v. the school board, one-person, one-vote, and the Constitutional right of privacy, at least as far as the contraception cases.) Alito also danced artfully around senators’ efforts to commit himself on some other precedents, most especially relating to abortion. This is the current state-of-the-art strategy for confirmation, and it appears to be working well. The intensity of the pro-choicer campaign a gainst Alito leads one to forget that there are still five votes to affirm Roe, and that on many of the issues liberals care about, Kennedy has affirmed the basic Warren Court breakthrough rulings. Depending on the the health of Kennedy and the four liberals, and the outcome of future elections, the stakes simply may not be as high as Biden’s elephant’s eye. (That was an elaborate conflation of the previous reference with a corny lyric from â€Å"Oh What a Beautiful Morning.† Ask your parents.†) If Roberts and Alito turn out to be solid allies of Scalia and Thomas, if the liberals stay together and stay well, and if Kennedy sticks with his established positions, that means: †¢Roe v. Wade is not overturned. Kennedy and the four liberals have already rejected that idea. But the congressional ban partial birth abortion is upheld. Kennedy already voted to uphold it once before. And other restrictions on abortion rights will be accepted. †¢Affirmative action is not ruled unconstitutional at its core. Scalia and Thomas have indicated a willingness to strike it down completely. But Kennedy declined to join those opinions. On the other hand, college s and universities will have an even rougher time figuring out how to construct a constitutional affirmative action program. In 2003, Justice O’Connor joined the four liberals in upholding the University of Michigan Law School’s admissions program, which claimed to have found a way to act affirmatively without explicit quotas or race-based point systems. Kennedy and the conservatives formed a four-member bloc that didn’t buy it. Quite likely, if a similar question makes it to the court, Kennedy will cast the decisive vote. †¢State-sponsored displays of religious symbols, like the 10 commandments, are more likely to be tolerated when Kennedy’s becomes the key swing vote. But the breakthrough Warren-era decision, banning school prayer, will not be overturned. Kennedy has already endorsed that precedent. †¢Kennedy’s free speech jurisprudence has a strong libertarian streak. That has helped liberals construe the burning of a U.S. flag by protesters and viewing pornography on the internet as constitutionally protected activities under the First Amendment. But Kennedy ’s libertarian streak made him leery of McCain-Feingold-type regulations that restrict political advertising in the name of campaign finance reform. The next time those issues roll around, Kennedy may provide the fifth vote necessary to strike down those regulations on First Amendment grounds. ( Black and Tice 1-2) Arguments against and in favor of School Prayer: School Prayer was a chief center of attention of Darrell Scott’s (father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School Shootings in Littleton, Colorado) testimony to the House Judiciary Committee in a exceptional session of the U.S. Congress on Thursday, May 27, 1999. What Darrell Scott said to our national leaders regarding school prayer was utterly factual and enlightening for all of us. The following is a portion of the transcript: â€Å"I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best. This was written before I knew I would be speaking here today. Your laws ignore our deepest needs, Your words are empty air. Youve stripped away our heritage, Youve outlawed simple prayer. Now gunshots fill our classrooms, And precious children die. You seek for answers everywhere, And ask the question, Why? You regulate restrictive laws, Through legislative creed. And yet you fail to understand, That God is what we need! Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, soul, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual influences were present within our educational systems for most of our nations history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in doing so, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbines tragedy occurs, politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to the erosion of our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts. Political posturing and restrictive legislation are not the answers. The young people of our nation hold the key. There is a spiritual awakening taking place that will not be squelched! We do not need more religion. We do not need more gaudy television evangelists spewing out verbal religious garbage. We do not need more million dollar church buildings built while people with basic needs are being ignored. We do need a change of heart and a humble acknowledgment that this nation was founded on the principle of simple trust in God! As my son, Craig, lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America, and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High S chool, prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred regard for legislation that protects your God-given right to communicate with Him.† (Popular Issues, School Prayer) There is always a state of war between secular humanists and groups like the Christian Coalition are concerning prayer in high schools and the victim is the innocent average high school kid. Each moment in time the argument is reawakened it concludes in a deadlock. The supporters of prayers say it will add to the broadmindedness in schools, as children be taught of diverse religions will convey to surface the special inquiries kids have about God and religion and allow them to investigate for their own conviction. The majority of them believe that prayers will lend a hand overturning the moral degradation of the society. Contrarily, Secularists shapes the public schools exist to educate, not to proselytize. Religion is private, and schools are public, both of the things couldn’t be intermixable. Whilst the sunup members of the clergy supports prayer during the Constitutional Convention and in ordinances governing education, the U.S. Supreme Court has vividly transferred their original premises. Some legal scholars and special interest groups have built upon those precedents, creating other rationalizations for limiting religious expression in America’s public schools. The mainly widespread squabble of such individuals is that the government has a responsibility to be neutral, so that no child is offended by the religious speech of another. This is erroneous because the issue cannot be neutral. Elimination of religious expression for the atheist will offend the child who believes in God. So, the schools must choose. Since 1962, they have sided with the small, nonreligious minority of atheists which, as recent Newsweek poll shows, consists of only 4 percent of the population. By contrast, 94 percent of respondents to that same survey professed a religious faith, and 61 percent said that they agreed with the statement that religion is very important in their lives. If free religious expression in the form of prayers is forbidden, school officials are, at the very least, teaching children that public recognition of God is not as significant as the things the schools can argue. It looks irrational that public schools permits open discussion about sexism but do not permit unwrap conversation regarding God. The courts have elapsed that schools can allocate free religious expressions devoid of implementing any meticulous category of spiritual consideration. Another dilemma is School prayer polarizes citizens around a religious axis. so far the First Amendment was printed to evade the bickers that might effect in the midst of values. Not tolerating prayer has done more to polarize citizens than almost any other issue in American history. Allowing prayer would put decision-making back in the hands of parents and local school boards, where it once rested. Those local boards could position guiding principles that would permit students who object to all prayer or some prayers not to chip in, just as many religious students have opted out of sex education classes at school place. That would obviously revere the rights of the minority, without infringing upon the rig hts of the majority. Local school boards would also be sheltered by the constitutional time/place/manner restrictions that apply equally to religious and nonreligious dialogue. In due course, a reinstatement of liberated expression to local public schools would unite, not polarize, citizens. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment presents that government shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. Because public schools are government funded, prayer led by school officials or incorporated into the school routine amounts to government-established religion. Prayer is school is already legal. Students are already allowed to pray on a voluntary basis (in a non-disruptive way) so formal school prayer is unnecessary. School prayer may lead to intolerance. Public prayer will emphasize religious diversity of which students may have been oblivious. Those students who withdraw from school prayer or dissent against it may be detested. School prayer is intrinsically coercive and cannot be implemented in a way that is truthfully intentional. The public school system is created for all students and supported by all taxpayers. It should therefore remain neutral on religious issues over which students and taxpayers will differ. Since no formal school prayer could simultaneously honor and uphold the tenets of the many religions practiced in the U.S., as well as various denominational differences, prayer is better left in the home and religious institution of the individual student’s choice. An associated squabble is that school prayer assumes the function of parents and religious institutions who wish to offer religious instruction in keeping with their possessive viewpoints. (All About History, School Prayers) Ishmael Jaffree alleged after Supreme Court decision (1985): For me, the battle is over. But prayer will go on in the schools. It just wont go on in any of my childrens classes. (NY Times B5:1) Works Cited Edward F. Woods. â€Å"Court Outlaws Prayer in Schools†.(1963) St. Louis Post-Dispatch Laurel MacLeod. â€Å"School Prayer And Religious Liberty: A Constitutional Perspective†. (2000) http://www.cwfa.org/images/content/cwaicon.ico Frohnmayer, John. â€Å"Out of Tune: Listening to the First Amendment. Golden, Colorado† North American Press, (1995). Austin Cline. â€Å"Prayers in Public Schools†. About: Agnosticism / Atheism. http;//usgovtifo.about.com â€Å"Church and State: How the Court Decides†. US Govt. Info/ Resources http;//usgovtifo.about.com â€Å"School Prayer Case Law- Absolute Necessity†. Popular Issues http://www.allaboutpopularissues.org Choper, Jesse H. â€Å"Securing Religious Liberty: Principles for Judicial Interpretation of the Religious Clauses†. University of Chicago Press. (1995). Erick Black and DJ Tice. â€Å"The Big Question: Who was the elephant NOT in the room†? Star Tribune (2006) http://www.startribune.com/blogs/bigquestion/?m=200601 â€Å"Arguments Against School Prayer†. All About History http://www.allabouthistory.org Ishmael Jaffree. â€Å"Quotation of the Day†. The New York Times. B5:1, Published: June 5, 1985.

English :: essays papers

English It's easy to tell the difference from right and wrong. It's just like telling the difference between dark and light. But what if you grew up in the dark not knowing there was a light, then you'd only think in one direction. "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right." Society usually thinks in one way, only the intelligent and gifted few can think outside of the box, outside of how society views the world. They follow their hearts to decide what is right and wrong. They come from the dark but are able to see the light. One of the intelligent and gifted few is Jonathan Edwards who wrote Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God. In this writing he talks about how men are sinners and how they need to start living their lives according to the bible. Sin was always a big issue for the puritans because they believed that men were born sinners. In his Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God, he mentions "their foot shall slide in due time" meaning that men stand on slippery ground. He describes of the sinner as a loathsome spider suspended by a slender thread over a pit of seething brimstone. And that "there is no fortress that is any defense against the power of god." Meaning that you cannot escape God no matter what you do and that helped awaken the people of the evil things they do. The Colonial Era had views such as that. They lived their lives as well as they can, but they were doing something wrong. They were being hypocrites. They didn't exactly follow through what a good Christian should do. They showed discrimination against other backgrounds, they used suspicion as means of law (an example would be witch craft trials). This train of thought later changed as the Age of Reason came. In the Age of Reason, one of the primary goals was to abolish the ignorance in men. In Benjamin Franklin's the Temple of Learning, he mentions in a dream where people visited the Temple of Learning "that the whole tribe who entered into the temple with me, began to climb the throne; but the work proving troublesome and difficult most of them, they withdrew their hands from the plow, and concentrated themselves to sit at the foot, with madam idleness and her maid ignorance.

Guernica, Picasso 1937

The Spanish painter Picasso was a cubist and his worldwide famous ‘Queering' is a mural-sized flat oil painting on canvas (3. 5 meters tall and 7. 8 meters wide). It is all grey, blacks and whites and was painted in 1937. Picasso started the painting when he heard that the Germans had Just bombed the quiet and traditional Basque town of Queering on 26 April 1937 in support of the Spanish Nationalist forces of the Fascist General Franco during the Spanish Civil War.The broken sword near the bottom of the painting symbolizes the defeat of the people at the hand of their tormentors. The shape and posture of the bodies express protest, Picasso uses black, white, and grey paint to set a dark, sober mood and express pain and chaos, buildings in flames and crumbling walls not only express the destruction of Queering, but reflect the destructive power of civil war. The newspaper print used in the painting reflects how Picasso learned of the massacre and the light bulb in the painting r epresents the sun.Picasso monumental work showed the effect on both people and animals. The distorted forms and the monochromatic palette clearly show the grief of the people for example, he shows a fighter and a mother and child tit displaced features and ghost like forms along with a woman on fire running from a burning building. The fine patterns in the centre of the painting resembles words on torn pieces of newspaper, suggesting that art is as powerful as the mass media in communicating a message.Chaos and despair are amplified by sharp, angular shapes, particularly the bold triangular form at the centre of the painting and vivid contrasts of light and shade. On May 11 1937, he made the first sketch for the mural. By the tenth of May, he had already begun work on the canvas. And in early June, the mural was completed. There are about 100 recorded sketches relating to the mural, some made before Picasso started working on the canvas, and others done simultaneously with the paint ing.In some of the sketches, Picasso experimented with color. Even when the mural was almost completed, the artist stuck pieces of patterned wallpaper onto the canvas to determine the effect of color of the composition. Charcoal and oil paint were the main materials Picasso had used on his painting. Picasso had to use a ladder and a long-handled brush to reach the retest part of his artwork. An enormous size of the stretched canvas, measuring 3. 5 x 7. meters and so had to be tilted to fit under the rafters of the ceiling, and dim lighting from bay windows on one side of the studio, failed to interfere with action or progress. The painting was completed in twenty-four mad and wild days. Streams of ideas, emotions, traditions, myths, obsessions and symbols of his roots deeply surrounded in Hispanic and Mediterranean culture spilled onto the canvas. These were fuelled by anger and a need to express his pain. Queering, Picasso 1937 By cherry's

Sex Online

This lecture is really an intro to the course. It defines the act of sex as the â€Å"exchanging of genetic data by two organisms for procreation. † This lecture also challenges our ways of thinking about sex as more than Just an act of procreation, but also as an act with social, political, mental, and personal complications. From strictly an evolutionary perspective, the goal of our genes Is to have as many babies as possible, through the act of sex.This lecture tells us sex has never Just been about babies (although they do allow for a kind of immortality and free labor) but also has o do with culture. Lecture 2- Fertility Tech This lecture begins to transcend Into the discussion of sex and technology. Technology comes from the Greek word techno, which means â€Å"Knowledge around a way of doing something. † This lecture also discusses the early forms of sex tech, specifically fertility control through herbs, abstinence through calendar manipulation (also known as th e rhythm method introduced by SST.Augustine, 4th Century), and acupuncture. This lecture also discusses the economic effects on fertility, such as the requirement of money to support a child. Culture was fluid and open. Homosexual relationships with young boys were considered fine in Greg Lecture 3- Why do we do It? This lecture clarifies the argument, that even In ancient times sex was not always for procreation. Early times were less hung up on sex. After human environments began to become heavily agricultural, sex did undergo a change that saw sex as something that should be controlled, or even saved for marriage.Still, sex in ancient times was still used much like it Is today, for pleasure. Condoms made of animal bladders, women using preemptively forms of lipstick, and all types of masturbation and roof sex demonstrate that In regards to the act of sex Itself, not much has changed. Sex in modern and ancient times was/is performed for pleasure, for ritualistic cultural purposes, for money, power, and even in situations where it was/is forced. Lecture 4- The Classical World This lecture discusses sex In the classical world. It talks about sex In ancient viewed abroad.Sexual practices across these different places were not shared, especially the tech that was used for sex. For example, in 800-B. C China, sex manuals were popular for men AND women, yet, in Greece sex was considered a more male entered-power act, in which the penetrator had the power. In Iran, sex was more strictly controlled, versus India and China where the sexual CE, as young boys didn't yet have the â€Å"power. † Lecture 5- World religions and Sex Religions that came out of the Classical Period, sought to control sex.Into the Middle Ages, the main religions all agreed sex needed to be controlled, and saved for marriage (save the Hindus, they didn't have the same kind of restrictions). Paul really started the move towards Church control of Sex (1st Corinthians), but his views were s kewed by a belief Armageddon was coming within a few years. The Christian churches' belief in sexual control stems from Chrism's obvious display of a lack of sexuality (some argue Christ had kids. In other religions such as Buddhism, monks also abstained from sex( before priests did).When settlers came to the New World, they viewed Native American men as feminine and weak for their dress and homosexual acceptance, and the women as objects of great sexual passion for their open sexuality. Yet, before world religions became overarching, religion and sex was intermixed ( in Hellenic Greece, Syria and Babylon, India, and Nepal, temple prostitutes were used). Even cults (such as the Oneida Commune) sex was controlled with communal control over fertility and children, yet, sex was free and open. So, is religion considered a technology? The answer is basically, yes.Lecture 6- Pre-Electric Erotic Communication Tech This lecture discusses sex technology, the earliest of which was used for co mmunication purposes(cave paintings). Some of the earliest cave paintings depicted sex! Along with paintings, devices such as the Venus(clay statue emphasizing big boobs and vulva) and even ancient dildos display sex tech and communication is as old as humanity itself. This lecture really pushes the point that every technology (paintings, stone mastery) was eventually put towards some sexual use, even ask years ago. First uses of any medium, are often erotic.This is displayed by sexual magazines made of papyrus in ancient Turin, Chinese art, and Japanese Shunts. Early erotic messages in Bibles (known as â€Å"Books of ours†) also demonstrate that as early as printing and engraving processes were created, they were used to create erotica. Lecture 7- Mass Sex Tech With the creation of printing presses and engraving machines came social change. Due to the high cost of owning a book, early erotic books and porn pieces were only for the wealthy and elite. Some art pieces, (specifi cally by Marquis De Side) were â€Å"art. The use of sexual art was also used for comedy (Romans thought huge penises were hilarious). Like any technology, when it was first created it was expensive. Yet, as things like printing and photography ( the first Polaroid camera) pornography began to become cheaper and easiest to create. At first, porn was thought only appropriate for wealthy men, as it might corrupt the poorer lower classes, yet, as cameras and elm became cheaper, porn began to drive the tech market. Many argue the Polaroid camera and VS. were huge successes because of the want to make pornography in a discreet, private settings.Lecture 8- PEP Networks Mass communication in regards to sex started simply as person-to-person communication. Love letters were probably the earliest forms of sexual PEP communication, followed by personal nude photos, and phone sex. Once operators were removed from phone lines, it became possible for people to have private phone sex. With phone sex, came the centralization of phone sex though sex lines. The dead of this lecture is to establish the idea that phone-sex, and virtual sex happen in a space where both participants aren't. Out of the PEP networks, would eventually spawn the porn industry as we know today. Y. At this time, internet downloads took forever, which is why the classic â€Å"Porno Movie† took hold. These were typically well funded films that created â€Å"stars† who appeared in more than one video. Yet, the internet began to change all of this in the ass's, as download times began to be reduced, and videos and images could be shared via the web. From videotape, porn moved to DVD, then finally to digital online). Lecture 9- The Industry The sass really started pornography as an industry, not Just a private PEP network. With technology advancing in forms of film, VS., and cameras, porn also advanced as an industry.With movies like â€Å"Deep Throat† porn began to become commonplace i n the theater, and would eventually move even into hotel rooms (pay- per-view). With more premiership, Porn began to make more money, became mass produced. Currently, the porn industry is struggling due to technological advances on the web. How do sex online differ from prostitution? Is it the same? Lecture 10- The Sex-Tech Nexus This lecture is a summary of what we Just learned. It asks us to re-think the outcomes, and what counts as sex are difficult to measure and vary.Module 1 Readings: 1 . Coppersmith: Pornography and the Internet Two main arguments -In the last 2 decades consumers of porn have accelerated the diffusion of new communication technologies like the VS. & CD-Room by becoming early buyers and users, thereby providing a profitable market for newly introduced services – Waves of new communication technologies have affected porn in ways as revolutionary as any other area of society The article focuses on the idea of the â€Å"demagnification of orangeroot' by r educing entry and transaction costs.Porn has served as an agent of change for both innovation and quest for profits. Video porn provided customers with a product to Justify acquiring costly equipment (VS.) and accelerated the diffusion of new technology without shaping it. Cyberspace attracted users to browse the internet and increased their knowledge of the system. Porn products have shaped computer technology by pushing the technological and commercial envelope. 2.Hughes: The Internet and Sex Industries From the introduction video, when thinking about the arguments made by Hughes, e able to take a stance and have information that would reinforce her arguments, or counter (thinking this could be a potential essay/short answer question Just throwing it out there) 3. Wallace: Greek Kings of Smut At first the invention of the internet was great to the porn industry, but as the years have went by, it has become detrimental. Now, there are not as many people buying porn because so many websites give you access to free porn these days.These amateur sites that offer free porn are even pirating from professional sites, and it is hard for them to stop this from happening because it occurs so often. . Dibbled: A rape in cyberspace The discussion of a textual rape that took place on a early form on an online community called Lampoon. A character named Bindle (SP? ) virtually raped 2 other characters in an open living room space. Brought about questions of Just because this took place online, do it dismiss the crime committed against the avatars.The Lampoon community was brought together to discuss Just that, and what the punishment should be for the rape in cyberspace, which was a proposed â€Å"toadying† or banishing that character. Also discussed about individuals real connections with setting proportions. Ultimately, the community came together to form a type of government to deal with such issues, and the resulting punishment for Bindle was toadying. 5. Avide r: Waller: A Freudian Analysis of Setting Fantasy is not only an imitation of one's relationship with reality, but it is also a different relationship to a world that's entirely different.Setting becomes an alternate reality. 6. Ross: Typing, Doing, and Being The increasing salience of sexuality on the internet, whether cyberspace or use of the internet to make sexual contacts, has focused interest n how internet-mediated sexuality informs social theory. This article reviews social theory and sexuality in relation to the internet, with specific reference to the development of intimacy, the association of texts with sexual scripts, the emergence of accessibility as a sexual space midway between fantasy and action, and the question of boundaries and the location of the person in sexual interaction.Also, the supplanting of the real by the symbolic, the internet as a sexual marketplace, its important role in creating sexual communities, particularly where sexual behavior or density is s tigmatize, its impact as a new arena for sexual experience and experimentation, and its impact in shaping sexual culture and sexual- TTY are noted. Finally, the importance of the internet as a medium for the exploration of human sexuality and as an opportunity to illuminate previously challenging areas of sexual research is discussed.Quiz 1 Questions and Answers Question: Giddiness argues that all but one of the following have led to new reflexivity and plasticity of our sexual identities? Which of these influences was NOT included in Giddiness' ideas? Answer: The Internet. Which of these does Ross argue lead to the success of cyberspace on the internet, but the ultimate demise of phone sex, despite the similarities between the two. Text allows you to distance yourself more from your statements about preferences or desires when compared with voice.Which of the following does Ross suggest may be possible effects of sex online? Answers: Cyberspace becomes a new niche of sexual behavio r. There is an expansion of sexual possibilities and partners made available to users. People will feel freer to experiment with alternative sexual experiences in a stigma- ere environment and learn more about themselves. The borders of where we consider ourselves and our bodies may change in unpredictable ways. At least two of our readings this module suggest that the internet provides a space for consequence free exploration of identity.Mr.. Bungle also made this claim. How does Dibbled Judge his comment? He suggests that the â€Å"it's only play† excuse is available only to newbie's and sociopaths. Others come to have a closer connection to their online personae. The New York Magazine article suggests that the online adult industry is hurting. What do most in the industry attribute this to? Tube sites and amateur. Module 2- This lecture is an intro about specific parts of pornography. Specifically, rule 34-if it exists there is porn about it.The idea behind Rule 34 is abou t community, meaning if someone likes a weird porn, odds are there are others that like it too(even if those numbers are small). Within this intro, is also an intro for the topics of future lectures in regards to extreme porn, horror porn, rape porn, snuff and the large variety of different pornographers. Lecture 2- Manipulating Intimacy This lecture starts the discussion about intimacy, and its relation to sex. Sex is arguably the most intimate a human can be with another person, yet online sex manipulates this intimacy.Eric Gong in her book, A Fear of Flying, discusses the idea of the Zippers buck, a pure buck that has no power game, nothing is taken or given, there is no humiliation, and there is nothing to prove. However, the Zippers buck according to Gong is as rare as a unicorn, and begs the question, does it even exist? Sex without intimacy is the main idea of this lecture, and whether or not it's even possible. Things like swingers clubs, bathhouses (1 5th century) and anony mous sex presented early forms of sex without intimacy, or â€Å"baggage† so to speak.While detached sex is not a product of the internet, it has become a cultural part of it. In terms of anonymous sex, there is not much social consequences as identity remains hidden, whereas actual-biological sex comes with the possibility of disease and such. The internet and things like phone sex allow for users to take on an identity, partake in sexual activity, and leave, whereas an online performer is not anonymous. In summary, the complexity of online sex is tied to identity, and anonymity. Lecture 3- Texts Is text interactive? Yes.In the early days of the internet when images were not possible, text was the main way of communication sexual speak. Coatrooms known as MUD'S and Moon's, allowed for people to gather in basic chat rooms and talk. These talks could often become sexual in nature, especially with questions like SSL (age, sex, location). Texts is also seen in romance novels for example, and even in sexual fan- fiction known as Slash. Virtual engagement programs like Cork and Elise created bots that could talk, which was then turned into a sexual chatterbox.These early MUD'S and bots paved the way for online sexual communities, Lecture 4- Pictures Online From text, came the first online pictures created using text. Images of a nude picture would be created using type writer, and when connected to a computer, could be shown to others around the web. FTP (file transfer protocol) allowed users to share a file on an FTP server. Users were then able to download and share various images, some scanned from magazines and even some slash fiction. These early FTP servers created early marketplaces for porn, and early porn sharing services (think Egan taking pictures directly for web consumption.But how did people find these sites? The answer was early search engines. Search engines like Google rose to prominence for their ability to cut through massive amounts of po rn related searches on the early internet and show users only subjects they wanted to search for. Tags, (thumbnail gallery post) were sort of online magazines, that websites tried to trick Search Engines and users to clicking on, driving traffic to early web pages. Lecture 5- Video Due to the slow download speed of videos, it took a while for videos to hit the internet.Yet, with the increase of bandwidth, small-stamp size videos eventually made their way onto the net. Early programs for video feed (Consume) allowed users to see one another, in slow frame-by-frame speed. With the explosion of the internet in 95†², early WebMD sites like Jenny Cam took off, drawing viewers and eventually money from complete strangers. What started with porn images, moved to videos in the late ass's as file compression, and the web itself advanced. Lecture 6- Mobile The idea of mobile pornography was not very popular early on.Yet, the mobile phone itself also grew as a result of pornography. Cell phones started with phone sex, and then grew to locative technology (tinder, grind etc). Cell phones allowed social life and internet life to mix, and at the same time created a mobile, private sexual place for people to explore. The gradual growth of mobile technology allowed for connections to be made that were sexual in nature. The main point of this lecture is that phones mixed online sexuality, and social culture. Lecture 7- Community Module 2 Readings: 1 .Fiddle: Indentured Servitude (Gizmo Article)- This article discusses chemicals and how some can make tons of money, and how there make little to no money. It's easy to get into this industry if you own a computer and are willing to show off your body to anyone willing to pay. Websites like Embraces make it easy for the people who own them to launder money because nobody actually knows where the money goes because it's hard to track it. 2. Passion: Labors of Love, Network This article talks about the transformation of porn onl ine. There were sex wars in the feminists have said porn identifies women as being subjected to violence.Moral conservatives says it is faith and morally decaying in any social or cultural value. Network refers to pornographers specific to online platforms and networks. This article talks about two very different forms of new porn and amateurism; network and porn on the net. Network refers to a more grassroots pornography movement in â€Å"which online technologies restructure the pornographic, porn on the net refers to the recycling of the same old pornographic images and texts from print media, video, and film on the internet† – Porn on the net also can include â€Å"gone' porn.Alt porn & mature porno are submerges of network: both â€Å"shift roles of porn consumers and producers within the framework of Web 2. † An example of ALT Porn is Suicide Girls. ALT is normally â€Å"soft-core† porn; typically included with â€Å"exhibition of non-standard sub culture styles† It is considered the answer against mainstream porn; not Just in esthetics but in the business model used. 3. Rookie: Beyond Key Parties and Wife Swapping 4.Rubber: Getting Started with Sex in Second-Life – This article talks about the gaming website called Second-Life. It is a virtual world in which people can meet anonymously and have cyberspace with each other. Cyberspace can be 100% text based or you can use avatars that you create perform the sex acts.. Members can become anyone they want, selecting enhanced, or different body parts, clothes, hairstyles, and personalities that they wish they had, or simply play with an alter-ego.Members navigate the site much like a game, but this is in order to meet different members. Once you meet and chat with another member, you can engage in virtual sex with that member, and they rarely say no. Second Life sex is a combination of the visual and the verbal. Players strip their avatars down to their cyber skin, u se pose balls (those floating orbs placed in romantic areas throughout he virtual world) to animate them into various sex acts, and keep up with the whole thing in IM.There's even a third option: climbable body parts attached to the avatars. These nipples, slits, penises, etc. Can be â€Å"touched† Just by clicking on them. Since the parts monitor the avatar's â€Å"arousal,† avatars can even orgasm this way. 5. Sutherland: Journalist or Panderer? This article talks about the online threat of websites used by minors. In the article the boy Justine Berry who was 13 at the time when got his first WebMD in which he was lured by sexual predators into striping, touching himself while they watched.

WW II essays

WW II essays -Schlieffen's Plan involved using 90% of Germany's armed forces to attack France. -Fearing the French forts on the border with Germany, Schlieffen suggested a scythee-like attack through Holand, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The rest of the German Army woudl be sent to defensive positions in the east to stop the expected Russian advance. -On 2nd August 1914, the Schlieffen Plan was put into operation. -August 4th 1914, Britain entered the war. The Schlieffen Plan had nto taken that into consideration. -British resistance at Mons and the slow retreat after the battle agve the French more time to prepare for the Germans attack. -Kluck, the German commander in France, saw that he could not keep to the Schlieffen Plan because of the resistance from the British. -Kluck changed the plan of attack; instead of going around Paris the Germans turned south. This left the Channel ports along the coast free from attackand enabled British reinforcements to get to France. -By December 1914 trenches ran from Switzerland to the Channel coast. Trench life was rough for all troops. Men spent countless hours in muddy rat-infested pits surrounded by dead bodies. -Defending the trenches was an easy task. Massed roles of barbed wire laid in front of the trenches made an enemy advance very difficult and slow. -Thousands of shells were fired into enemy lines in hopes to disable the trenches defence allowing for a sucessful attack. However the bombings acted as a warning for the opposition, giving them time to set up and prepare for the troops advancing from the trenches. -Major Battles: 1915:Ypres, Loos, Vimy Ridge, Cambrai, Messines. 1918: Marne, St. Quentin. -Germans losses: 281,000 men. French losses: 315,000 men. These losses from the attacks above. -The Somme was Briatin's most costly battle. Date: July 1st 1916; 60,000 men were killed out of a 100,000 men army.The battle ended in the middle of November 1916, and Britain had suffe ...

The Complete Guide to Grants for College

The Complete Guide to Grants for College SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips If you know you’ll need to get financial aid to make college more affordable (most students do, by the way), then you should definitely learn everything you can about grants. They happen to be some of the best forms of financial aid you can get. Here, I’ll tell you exactly why grants are so great and why you should seek them out. Then, I’ll get to the important stuff: where and how you can get your own grant awards. Let’s get started! What Are Grants for College? Grants are sometimes called â€Å"gift aid.† Grant money is funding that you don’t have to work for (like work study) and that you don’t have to pay back (like loans). At this point, you may be thinking that college grants sound pretty similar to scholarships. And you’re right - they generally work in the same way in that you don’t have to pay back either type of funding. The major difference between grants and scholarships is that grants are usually primarily based on financial need, whereas scholarships are often merit-based or need- and merit-based. Why Are Grants so Great? College grants are awesome forms of financial aid because they lower your college costs immediately and forever. Other forms of financial aid - loans, specifically - are helpful when you don’t have the money to pay for college, but they can become a burden after you graduate because you have to pay them back (plus interest). Loans are band-aids that cost you money in the long run - this doesn’t mean that they can’t be helpful and important forms of financial aid, but grants are superior to loans because you get the money up front and are under no obligation to pay back the funds later on. Another reason why grants are so great? Because they tend to be need-based, they’re often awarded to students who need them the most. Although there are definitely financial aid opportunities out there for students who come from more privileged backgrounds, grants are primarily awarded to students with very limited financial resources. Where Can You Get Grants for College? There are a few major sources of grants for college students. Because there’s no standardized application, protocol, or eligibility criteria for all grants available to college students, things can seem a bit complicated at first. Not to worry, though - things aren’t as complicated if you’re able to break down grants by funding source. Here are the most important places to find grant funding, along with basic eligibility criteria for each funding source. Federal Government - Eligibility requirements for federal grants are laid out in our Pell Grant guide. Overall, the requirements are pretty lax - the major ones are that you need a high school diploma or GED, and you need to be enrolled (or accepted to enroll) in a college or career school. State Government - Eligibility requirements for state-based grants will, unsurprisingly, vary by state. At the very least you should meet all federal requirements in addition to being a state resident. Get more detailed information about state financial aid programs. Your School - In the context of this post, I’m defining a grant as an award that’s strictly need-based. Schools may award grants or â€Å"scholarships† that are based on financial need, not merit, to students who have been accepted and need help paying the full Cost of Attendance. Eligibility reqs will vary by school, but some schools tend to be more generous than others. If you only take away one piece of information from this section, it should be this: the most well-known grants are the ones offered through the federal government. The application process and eligibility requirements are very standardized, so the grants are very predictable. Predictability means you can estimate a budget for your grant awards before you even apply! Federal sources should be your first consideration when you start looking into grant opportunities. Federal Grants for College There are many different federal grant options, each with their own requirements and award amounts. Here, I’ll cover the main federal grants and what you should know about them. Pell Grants - These are for students who haven’t yet earned a bachelor’s or professional degree. The maximum award for 2016-2017 is $5,815, although the amount you get is determined by your financial need. This is the largest and most important federal grant program. FSEOG (Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant) - These are for undergraduate students with exceptional financial need. They’re administered directly by the financial aid offices at participating schools, and are therefore called â€Å"campus-based† aid. Recipients get between $100-$4,000 per year depending on financial need. TEACH Grants (Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education) - These are different from most other grants because they have some strings attached. The awards are meant to help students pay for college if they plan on becoming a teacher in a high-need field in a low-income area. To keep the grant from becoming a loan, you need to take certain kinds of classes and get a certain kind of job. Students can get up to $4,000 per year. Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grants - Students whose parent or guardian died as a result of military service in Iraq or Afghanistan may be eligible for these grants. The grant maximum is the same as that of the Pell Grant, which is $5,815 for 2016-2017. These awards can cover a pretty significant chunk of your college expenses, especially if you’re also getting aid from other sources, like outside scholarships or school-based financial aid. State Grants for College State grant amounts and eligibility will vary based on where you live. Sometimes you just need to fill out a FAFSA to be considered for state grant aid, whereas other times you’ll need to fill out a separate financial aid application. The good news is that almost every state education agency has at least one grant or scholarship available to residents. For more information, look into grant availability for your state. Grants from Your College or University Just like with state grants, institutional grant aid availability and eligibility will vary based on the school you attend. Many highly ranked schools offer relatively large amounts of grant aid based on financial need. Some schools offer impressive amounts of merit aid in order to attract competitive applicants. There are a couple of ways you can get more info about typical grant aid at a particular school: Check out that school’s net price calculator (almost every school has one on its admissions and/or financial aid website). You enter in your financial and sometimes academic information, and the tool spits out an estimate of the amount of aid you’d receive if you attended that school. Google â€Å"[school name] PrepScholar tuition† for our page on that school’s grant, scholarship, and loan availability. The page will walk you through estimating your own aid eligibility at that school. Example: The first search result link here is the one you want. How Do You Apply for Grants? Now that you have a better idea of why grants are awesome and how much money you can actually get, the next step would be to submit those grant applications. So where do you start? Again, the process for applying for college grants depends on where the money comes from. Here, I’ll break down application processes for the major sources of grant funding. Federal Government You may not have expected this, but the federal government actually makes it pretty easy to apply for grant funding (and all federal funding, really). You just have to submit one application: the FAFSA. You’ll need to gather quite a bit of financial information for both yourself and your parents before you start, but once you have that paperwork the actual application shouldn’t take long. Get step-by-step instructions on how to complete your FAFSA. To estimate the amount of aid you’ll be eligible for before you even submit your FAFSA, read about how to use the FASFA4caster. State Government Unfortunately, some states don’t make it quite as easy to apply for grants. You’ll have to do your own research on what your state of residency requires. Learn more about specific state aid availability and application processes. Your School Oftentimes, your application for grant money (at least for your freshman year) is your college application - you may not need to submit any additional paperwork, which really streamlines the whole process. To double-check that you’re not missing out on any grant opportunities at a specific school, just Google â€Å"[school name] grants and scholarships.† There should be a page on that school’s financial aid website with more information on available aid - just make sure you’re only looking at awards for undergraduate students at the grade level you’re entering. For more information on school grant aid, check out these posts: Schools with the best financial aid Schools with 100% financial aid How to win a full ride scholarship Other Options for Financial Aid If you’re on the lookout for need-based aid, there are other options out there besides grant funding. Scholarships Many private and nonprofit organizations offer scholarships (remember, scholarships often include merit requirements) with strict financial need qualifications. Scholarships from private organizations may be offered on a local, state, national, or even international level - as you might expect, then, there’s no single consolidated database with information on all available grants from private sources. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t good resources out there for you to start your research! Each private scholarship or grant organization will have its own deadline, eligibility requirements, and application process. The good news is that this means more chances to win money; the bad news is that you’ll have to keep track of a lot of moving parts, especially if you apply to several grant or scholarship programs. Step one is actually finding grant/scholarship programs you think may be a good fit. I personally think this is the hardest part of the process. Then, you just have to be organized about submitting all parts of your applications in a polished and timely fashion. Read more about how to win a full ride scholarship for more information on getting grant aid. You can also check out our guides to individual scholarship programs, like the Gates Millennium and Coca-Cola scholarships, for tips and strategies for winning competitive awards. Check out these guides to learn more about private grants and scholarships: The best scholarship search tools The ultimate local scholarship guide Top scholarships for juniors and seniors in high school How to get a merit scholarship Easy scholarships to win Easy scholarships to apply for Most of these scholarship programs consider both merit and financial need when awarding funds. Federal Work Study The Federal Work Study Program encourages employers to hire students with federal work study awards, which opens up job opportunities for you while you’re in college. This isn’t a grant, loan, or scholarship - you earn a wage like with any other job, but you’re able to use the money as you see fit. You’re considered for a Work Study award when you submit your FAFSA, so you don’t have any extra paperwork to fill out if you’re interested in this need-based program. Read more about Federal Work Study for more information. Summary: How Grants Can Help You Grants - which are available from all sorts of sources - are a great way to make college more affordable, especially if your family is relatively low-income (this increases your chances of qualifying for grant aid). To optimize the amount of grant money you receive, you should check out funding from federal, state, institutional, and private sources. This may mean that you juggle several deadlines and applications, but I promise that if you do your due diligence ahead of time, the money you save will prove worth it in the long run. What’s Next? There are so many other things to learn if you’re interested in budgeting smart for college. Start off by getting the basics on by learning about the four different types of financial aid. Then, read more about reducing your dependence on loans - this means less debt to worry about once you graduate. If you won’t be getting much (or any) financial support from family, you may want to learn more about how to pay for college without your parents. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now: