...Our children’s education plays an important and vital role in their future success. Children however, sometimes make no attempt to acquire much knowledge, primarily because they do not realize the necessity of a proper education. Moreover, the issue of poverty prevents children from acquiring an effective education. In the literary work "The Lesson", Toni Cade Bambara describes the difficulties of growing up as poor children. She goes on to point out the power of education for them. Education is empowerment for children living in poverty because it helps them to understand the disadvantages of their poor life in comparison to the rich and shows that effective knowledge is the way to overcome poverty. Additionally, a proper education can inspire children to strive even harder for their success. In “The Lesson”, the author reveals to the reader the disadvantages of poverty in relationship to wealth through Ms. Moore's lesson. Ms. Moore chooses to take a group of children to the luxury FAO Schwarz toy store in order to show them the difference between rich and poor lives. She knows that the trip is only a chance to let children see another side of life in the same city and helps them realize the disadvantages of their poor life. Through the narration of Silvia, a leader of the group, a reader can imagine the low quality of the children’s lives. At the beginning of the trip Moore talks to the children about the value of money. She discusses the amount of money their...
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...KB Toys’ July 1, 2010 Abstract Why did KB Toys fail? KB Toys was offering toys at a discounted price like consumers where looking for but was that enough? KB Toys did restructures as well as took help from investment companies which brought a profit for a short time. While all of this was a quick fix the revenue never stayed constant but continued to drop. The store stayed in the original idea but never moved forward with the changes of times. Toys where out dated and there was lack of organization. KB Toys’ KB Toys started out as a candy wholesaler in 1922 (KB Toys, nd).Toys was not what the Kaufman Brothers, KB, where looking for however when a debt could not be paid by a client Kaufman Brothers inherited a wholesale toy company during the 1940s (KB Toys, nd). KB Toys changed their name a few times through out the company’s life span. Kay-Bee Toy & Hobby Stores was the first name to take life and sale items at discount prices. By 1977 the store had changed focus to just toys and it was such a big success the name was changed to Kay-Bee Toy and Hobby Shops, Inc. (KB Toys, nd). In 1981 the company is purchased by Melville Corporation and is a division known as Kay-Bee Toy Stores (KB Toys, nd). By 1996 the chains of stores are sold to Consolidated Stores Corporation (KB Toys, nd). Once Consolidated bought Kay-Bee the image of the company needed to be enhanced, thus the KB logo was created (KB Toys, nd). KB toys had a great idea with providing toys at a discounted...
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...characters for use with media products. In an era during which mass media is so important in people’s life, only one media tool - publishing is not strong enough to expand Marvel’s influence to consumers. Comic books can only target a very limited market that most is composed of male teenagers and young adults from 13 to 23 years old. It is very difficult to expand this traditional market significantly. After many years development, this market has become matured and very stable. Meanwhile, people are more and more exposed to movies, televisions, and video games, which are very effective to influence people’s consumption behavior than comic books. All these media tools are able to reach more consumer segments than traditional comic-book publishing. Marvel’s potential to develop has increased dramatically when its market has significantly been expanded by broadcast media. Other consumer products, such as toys, work with media products reinforced each other. This market expansion develops not just in a comprehensive manner, but also in an intensive manner. Marvel emphasizes a long-term value in its new management. They plan career for each of their characters. For example, Spider-Man’s career over the next five years is to have two more movies, DVDs, toys, a video game, and a promotion with Burger King. The intensive career plan can have each character penetrate into people’s life by media in a long term basis. The third main strategic dimension is to ensure the quality of...
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...looking and waiting for happiness. We convince ourselves that the right career, the right life choices, and the right relationships will open the gates to happiness. Most people are misled, and they do not know what actually will bring them real happiness until they experience it first-hand. Happiness does not just happen with no work; you have to work towards it. It is something that has to be pursued on a constant level throughout our lives. After reading the articles on happiness, choices in life, and experienced well-being I have come to realize a few significant points that could point towards being happier and coming closer to actual happiness. Happiness can reached in a number of ways, and there are many steps that people can take to increase happiness in their own lives regardless of their background or the situations they find themselves in. In the first article we read named “The Smiling Professor”, Claudia Dreifus is interviewing a psychologist named Dan Gilbert. Dan Gilbert has spent his career studying the nature of human happiness. To many people Dan Gilbert is known as “Professor Happiness”. Throughout this interview Gilbert tends to refer to happiness as something that will happen to our future selves. When asked how predicting our feelings of future events could relate to understanding happiness Gilbert states “Because if we can’t predict how we’d react in the future, we can’t set realistic goals for ourselves or figure out how to reach to them”. Gilbert has...
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...What I’m passionate about is making pc and video game I’m the passionate about. So why am I in to pc and video game, well it really stared with me as a about 4 or 5 year old. And I had a broke toy car and I went to my dad tool box and got the tool try which one work and did not work on the toy car. And I end up with my toy car all in parts, and so what I did to it is that I try to put it back to gather as it was and I did but the toy car was still broke, bit that was just a new that I so love to do. So once I was about 6 to 10 year old I stared to open toy with the tool and my dad well just get mad at me time to time. But I just love to do thing like that, just see how it works in the inside and then put it back to gather. And then there is me one year older brother was so much in to that fix toy. But all the time I tell he to help me in to me toy work that I was doing. So I was the one that got all the mass up and broke and try fix again, but my brother in the other hand had a much defiant mind then me. He was the one that said do or bad thing can happen to us. But I got brother to help me one way or another....
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...library by licensing characters for use with media products. During an era in which mass media is very important in people’s life, only one media tool, publishing, is not strong enough to expand Marvel’s influence to consumers. Comic books can target a very limited market, mostly composed of male teenagers and young adults from 13 to 23 years old. It is very difficult to expand this traditional market. After many years of development, this market has matured and is very stable. Meanwhile, people have been more exposed to movies, televisions, and video games, which more effectively influence people’s consumption behavior than do comic books. All these media modes are able to reach more consumer segments than traditional comic-book publishing. Marvel’s potential to develop increased dramatically when its market expanded to broadcast media. Other consumer products, such as toys, worked in conjunction with media products, these two kinds of products reinforced each other. Marvel’s market expansion developed in both a comprehensive and intensive manner. Marvel emphasized long-term value in its new management strategy. They planed “career” for each of their characters. For example, Spider-Man’s career over the next five years is to have two more movies, DVDs, toys, a video game, and a promotion with Burger King. The intensive “career plan” extend character’s life and can have each character penetrate into people’s lives by media on a long term basis. The third main strategic...
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... GENDER AND TOYS As all we know, we begin to learn our gender as soon as we are born. And it strengthens in time. The most effective reason of this is the environment. What I mean is the family and teachers. Thus, toys are very important for gender discrimination. As different colors for boys and girls are learned from the beginning, toys are, too. For example, dolls are given to girls while boys play with cars or balls. There are some reasons for different toys according to gender. Firstly, it makes us ready for our duties in the future. In some sort, it decides that home is the place of women and work is for men. Secondly, there are gender differences in abiliities and behaviour as Kimberly Wright Cassidy writes. There are some generalizations about gender issues. For example, girls are better at verbal and writing skills while boys are better at numerical skills like math or phsyics. This leads parents to choice different toys. Another generalization is that boys are more active than girls. However, there are some axamples like Egalia which is a school stopping gender differences and Baby X experimentation which denies these generalizations. In ‘’X A Fabulous Child’’ written by Louis Gould, the baby X is given both doll and ball. In addition to this, ball is given by the mother while doll is given by the father. At the end, it is seen that the baby X is good at games inside and outside. Toys determine gender before the...
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...computer graphics division of Lucas Films Ltd. for $10 million and established Pixar Animation Studios. Since its inception, Pixar established itself as a leader and innovator in computer animation. Its first animated short films garnered many film awards, most notably The Tin Toy, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1989. In 1991, Pixar entered into a three-picture co-production deal with Disney. Following the success of Toy Story, this relationship was extended to include three more pictures. A string of blockbuster hits followed, each film doing better than its predecessors. A Bug’s Life was the highest grossing film of 1998. Toy Story 2 became the highest grossing animated movie of its time in 1999, later topped by Monsters, Inc. in 2001, and then by Finding Nemo in 2003. On January 30, 2004, it was announced that Pixar and Disney had failed in their negotiations to extend their contract beyond the animated film Cars, to be released in 2006. With the stellar success of Finding Nemo, Pixar felt entitled to a more profitable contract with Disney. The new Disney CEO Robert Iger has stated that he will continue negotiations with Pixar. Before Pixar makes its decision on its future relationship with Disney, it should consider its survivability and likely profitability in seeking distribution deals elsewhere. II. Company Analysis • Company History (1) o 1984: Former Disney animator John Lasseter joins George Lucas’ computer graphics group...
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...too much to ask? Toys and games are a vital necessity in every child’s life. If the child earns the right to receive such expensive objects, then he/she should. If the parents can afford what they’re buying for their children, why should we have the right to stop them? Should we take into account for the money spent on sport? Toys and game assist you with your mental abilities too. Not all toys and games are overly expensive. People are generalising the amount of money spent, and is regarding it as ‘expensive’. The amount of money spent on toys and games is nothing compared to the amount people spend on even more useless objects. Spending too much money on toys and games is not losing your ability to communicate, nor is the amount money spent overly excessive. Money paid for a child’s sport would be regarded as compulsory to a large majority of people. Obesity is a problem in Australia, as it is in many countries. Playing a sport keeps a child fit, and reduces the youth obesity problem that is occurring. Playing a sport not only affects a person’s fitness but affects their relationships too. Playing a sport, or even board games teaches you social skills. Games and toys such as puzzles can stimulate a child’s mind, which can allow them to gain more knowledge. Toys and games don’t just refer to computer or video games. A game like Monopoly teaches you the value of money. Having a Barbie doll is bad for a little girl’s future? These little girls are imagining a life they aren’t living...
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...New York, 1984 [Copy-edited and spell-checked by Scott Atkins, September 1995. Tagged in html, October 1995.] TOYS French toys: one could not find a better illustration of the fact that the adult Frenchman sees the child as another self. All the toys one commonly sees are essentially a microcosm of the adult world; they are all reduced copies of human objects, as if in the eyes of the public the child was, all told, nothing but a smaller man, a homunculus to whom must be supplied objects of his own size. Invented forms are very rare: a few sets of blocks, which appeal to the spirit of do-it-yourself, are the only ones which offer dynamic forms. As for the others, French toys always mean something, and this something is always entirely socialized, constituted by the myths or the techniques of modern adult life: the Army, Broadcasting, the Post Office, Medicine (miniature instrument-cases, operating theaters for dolls), School, Hair-Styling (driers for permanent-waving), the Air Force (Parachutists), Transport (trains, Citroens, Vedettes, Vespas, petrol-stations), Science (Martian toys). The fact that French toys literally prefigure the world of adult functions obviously cannot but prepare the child to accept them all, by constituting for him, even before he can think about it, the alibi of a Nature which has at all times created soldiers, postmen and Vespas. Toys here reveal the list of all the things the adult does not find unusual: war, bureaucracy, ugliness, Martians, etc...
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...Cade Bambara, Miss Moore takes on the roll as the children’s teacher, or in other words their instructor. The one thing Miss Moore wanted out of all of it, was to teach the kids a lesson. She wanted the children to know that they need to be goal oriented and work hard in everything that they do, and that education will lead you to success no matter who you are, or where you come from. She wanted them to know that the race they were wasn’t going to change who they would be in the future, or lower their chances of success, because you can do anything when you work hard and set your mind to something....
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...are all so different, but experience many of the same struggles. I feel as though these interviews showcase the differences as well as the similarities between generations of women. My first interview is “Penny”. Penny is 19 years old, single, and has no children. She is currently attending college and has lived in Ohio for the majority of her life. When she was younger,...
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...a struggle against a monster but a tragedy of a scientist, who reached the goal of his work and life and realized that breathless horror and disgust filled his heart but all of these is on the surface. The deepest philosophical thought is covered and hidden, but is very deep. The author tries to say that life is a gift. After this gift is given no one can take it away and it becomes the responsibility of the creator. The novel makes the reader concerned with the question: “Is a human being able to take responsibility to give life?”. “Frankenstein’s” philosophy is a conflict between the value of human life and the value of a scientific discovery. This story is not only the tragedy of Victor Frankenstein but also of his creation. It is the tragedy of loneliness and fighting alone with the world.The tragedy of Viktor Frankenstein was a tragedy of him being a toy in the hand of his own parents for the believed that he “was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery”[p.34]. The next quote shows exactly how he grew up: “they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed…”[p.37]. This subconsciously led him to the desire to have somebody he could control, to have another toy, another enjoyment, but he was unable to take responsibility for the creature he brought to life because this was not a toy but a living being. His childhood was like a dream come true but behind all the joys his parent...
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...Jonathan Guzman, Raji Kaleh, Amy Lee, Riane Sanchez Business & Society Final Draft October 21, 2014 Case Study 5: Mattel & Consumer Protection In 2007, Mattel, a global leader in the design, manufacture, and marketing of toys, issued a voluntary recall of 1.5 million Chinese-made toys. A majority of as a result of such carelessness, children’s health and safety were at great risk due to poor toy design, such as loose magnets, and substituting lead free paint for a fatal amount of lead paint on Mattel’s toys to cut corners and save money. As consumers we are naive to believe that boards of directors and higher management in manufacturing companies are highly concerned with our safety. In reality, Mattel has a serious lack of crisis management as well as failing to meet proper safety procedures violating consumers right to safety. As a result millions of children are in harm’s way and are susceptible to life-altering health risks. Having a lack of regulation on imported toys has resulted in high levels of lead paint and loose magnets. Government regulation or a lack of government regulation has also caused many companies aside from Mattel to cut corners and look more at the bottom line as opposed to the safety of consumers. According to Lawrence and Weber, stakeholder theory “argues that corporations serve a broad public purpose; to create value for society”. It can be assumed Mattel was acting unethically with regards to producing unsafe products for their consumers;...
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...and the important life lesson that she learns one day while on a trip to a toy store in New York. Her neighbor, Miss Moore, brings Sylvia and a group of her friends to F.A.O. Schwarz and while there, they come face to face with the injustices they face because of their backgrounds. Miss Moore does this to teach them a lesson, one that she feels that they need to learn in order to succeed in life and overcome any obstacles they may face. Bambara identifies with race through class and demographics, using a trip to a pricey New York toy store to expose Sylvia and her group of friends to the reality of their classed society. Sylvia tells us "Then we check out that we on Fifth Avenue and everybody dressed up in stockings. One lady in a fur coat, hot as it is. White folks crazy." (89). She discovers that the rich, upper class whites don't dress like African Americans, even though the weather is the same. She realizes that they have money and a tendency to flaunt just how wealthy they are. "'Must be rich people shop here,' say Q.T. 'You are a very bright boy,' say Flyboy. 'What was your first clue?'" (92). One of the children in the group was able to identify with the demographic of the area, recognizing that only people with status and wealth would be able to buy the expensive toys in the store. Bambara gives the reader an insight about the 1970s and what life was like in both societies. White people (those in the upper class) could easily afford the costly toys at FAO Schwarz, while...
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